No Errors for Erasure at the Hollywood Palladium

Is Andy Bell, the singing half of the English electro-pop duo Erasure, the successor to James Dean? On Friday at the Hollywood Palladium he looked more like Liza Minnelli in “Cabaret,” what with his skin-tight black-sequined lederhosen outfit.

But judging by the ecstatic reaction accorded him and musician Vince Clarke by the young crowd for their openly gay yet universal pleas for love and respect, Erasure is the latest in a line of Voices of Disaffected Youth that runs from from Dean (and “Cabaret’s” Sally Bowles, for that matter) through Depeche Mode (which Clarke founded) and Morrissey.

The kids could do a lot worse. The expansive nature of Bell’s performance and Clarke’s pleasant, if not exactly innovative neo-disco make Erasure seem a bright beacon to lost and confused souls (in other words, teen-agers). That’s a winning contrast to D. Mode’s bleak groping-in-the-darkness approach to alienation.

Where Erasure looks at the effects of fear and ignorance on personal development, opening act Shona Laing’s specialty is their effect on global politics. Unfortunately, the New Zealander’s smart, melodic nuclear-age folk/pop sounded a bit muddy in the Palladium. But enough got through to make a local club appearance something to wish for.