Crowning achievement at Tent

By AMANDA LEHMERT
STAFF WRITER
HYANNIS – They screamed the lyrics as though a collective spirit ran through them.

They raised their hands up in worship at the temple of Melissa Etheridge.

“IIIIIIIII am a giant.

“And you will not make me fall.

“And you will not make me crawl.”

And in case the whole audience at the Melody Tent last night wasn’t convinced Etheridge is a rock ’n’ roll goddess, she must have converted any nonbelievers with a closing cover that would have made another music queen proud.

With a badass crew cut and an band to match her every bluesy, rockin’ whim, she cut a sweaty, exhausted swath through the crowd.

Lucky for Etheridge, she was wearing a Marine Corps T-shirt and linen pants to keep cool in the humid summer night. (“Tonight, we are rocking in linen. It’s a first for me,” Etheridge quipped.)

The nearly three-hour set list was a compilation of her greatest hits, from the radio-ready 1990s classic “Come to My Window” to tunes like “Giant,” off her most recent album Lucky.

She also took it down a notch with a solo performance and a short acoustic section.

Her homage to cancer survivors, “I Run For Life,” written as a kind of theme song for Race for the Cure, brought the faithful into the aisle.

Etheridge was full of sisterly advice and confessional admissions about former lovers that kept the crowd engaged.

“It’s very important you don’t chase the love that doesn’t want you. That just makes you a stalker,” she joked as she dove into the her hit, “I Want To Come Over.”

But it was the unabashed, head-spinning, ear-ringing rock break downs that made the show.

Etheridge’s assertion that her three-piece back-up band is “the greatest band in the world” is certainly a tall order. But she isn’t far off.

Spastic drummer Fritz Lewak, smooth bassist Mark Browne and scorching guitarist Philip Sayce matched Etheridge’s talent and intensity note for note, song after song.

I was starting to feel disappointed that she didn’t play one of my favorite car ride sing-a-long tunes, “I’m the Only One,” when she upped the ante, pairing “I’m the Only One” with a Janis Joplin-esque version of “Piece of My Heart.”

Humid tent be damned. Every last believer was on her feet.