Isaak, Merchant Showered With Bad Love--and Books

Chris Isaak isn’t the usual tortured artist. He wears a powder-blue suit covered in sequins. He tells good/bad jokes as dumb as they are charming. He likes confetti. But somewhere within his shimmering, whispery guitar songs is the torment of bad love.

Isaak was most effective when that sound was deeply haunted Friday at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, where he co-headlined a concert with Natalie Merchant. It is a tradition first mastered by Roy Orbison, and only about half of Isaak’s set truly reached that smoldering intensity, epitomized by his own “Wicked Game.”

Friday also marked Isaak’s first local appearance since drawing new attention with his quirky TV series on Showtime, but the concert was no different in mood and content from earlier tours. His best subject remains what he called “unrequited love, which is when you’re not getting any. That’s the French translation.” Isaak and his five-man band rocked things up on songs he promised would be “down in the gutter.” Among them was “Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing,” which had the frontman grunting the title words, before crooning another searing line of real heartbreak.

Earlier, Merchant’s set was emotional and controlled, but she could be a rousing presence during “These Are the Days” (a song from her time in 10,000 Maniacs) and other folk rock ballads of thoughtful celebration. On the darker “This House Is on Fire,” she sang to mystical Eastern flourishes of violin and tabla, though the same song sometimes slipped into a standard reggae groove.

Fans sang along, and near the end of the set, one rushed the stage not for the usual offering of a bouquet but to deliver a couple of books. “These look really good,” Merchant said, but she didn’t stop to read them.