By David Menconi
dmenconi@newsobserver.com

RALEIGH – Give any band enough time, and it will inevitably turn into an oldies act. Consider Jane’s Addiction, once the coolest band in the land but nowadays a group that evokes an aging stripper who still has the moves and not much else.

Jane’s Addiction played Memorial Auditorium Tuesday night, drawing a half-full house consisting mostly of folks old enough to have witnessed the band’s early-1990s peak as creators of the Lollapalooza Festival.

Two decades on, Lollapalooza still exists as an ubur-hip alternative-rock festival in Chicago. Jane’s, meanwhile, is still partying like its 1991. Fully two-thirds of Tuesday’s set list consisted of songs from more than 20 years ago, resulting in a show as oldies-heavy as Van Halen last month.

Back in its day, Jane’s was less a band than a moment in time. “Nothing’s Shocking,” declared the title of the group’s first big-league album 24 years ago, and it evoked the pornography of everyday life – the sex and violence lurking beneath pretty placid suburban surfaces. Jane’s Addiction dragged that out into the open and made it a communal experience, as disturbing as it was glorious.

That made sense in 1988. In 2012, when titillation beyond your sickest fantasy is just an internet connection away, there’s something almost quaint about Jane’s Addiction’s softcore peep-show vibe. It’s still creepy, sure, but kind of pointless.

But they’re still serving it up, because that’s what they do. Tuesday’s show featured plenty of visual accompaniment, including a couple of scantily clad female dancers and a dude who did weird things while wearing strange outfits. During “Twisted Tales,” he was done up like the Elephant Man and flinging baby dolls around.

The sound was a muddy roar (which didn’t stop one of the guys behind the sound board from literally jumping up and down), but the fact that frontman Perry Farrell’s vocals were virtually unintelligible throughout the show was not a huge deal. It’s always been about the sound of his sonic-boom voice, not the words.

“Up the Beach” demonstrated this in spades, communicating plenty of angst with Farrell’s wordless howl soaring over guitarist Dave Navarro’s crushing riffage. “Been Caught Stealing” was also effective, thanks to a groove that’s still as unstoppable as it was in 1990.

But too many other songs just fizzled on the Launchpad, and it was hard to figure out why the show wasn’t more engaging. The band still played well, and its sonic template remains one of the most distinctive in contemporary rock, although the newer songs from last year’s “The Great Escape Artist” didn’t seem like much.

Ultimately, it all seemed hollow, signifying…not much. Maybe it was because everyone, audience as well as band, is just too much older (if not wiser) by now. Or maybe it was the fact that Jane’s has never evolved and grown beyond its moment.

The last song played Tuesday night was “Stop!” At this point, sad to say, that wouldn’t be bad advice.

Menconi: 919-829-4759 or blogs.newsobserver.com/beat

Tuesday's Drake concert in Raleigh has been postponed due to personal issues. The rapper/actor was to perform at Raleigh's Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion at Walnut Creek, topping a bill also featuring Fayetteville native J. Cole. But the show has been postponed until June 19. Also postponed was Drake's Wednesday concert at Virginia Beach.

A statement cited "an unforeseen personal family matter," adding that Drake  "looks forward to performing for his fans soon and thanks them in advance for their understanding during this time."

Tickets purchased for Tuesday's show will be honored at the June 19 date with no exchange necessary. For further details, go to livenation.com or call 800/745-3000.

So Mick Jagger hosted this weekend's "Saturday Night Live" season finale, prompting rumors about his Rolling Stones bandmates turning up for the musical portion of the program. That didn't come to pass, but what they came up with was still way cool -- collaborations between the host and Foo Fighters, Jeff Beck and most of all Arcade Fire, who backed Jagger up on an at-times ragged yet great rendition of "The Last Time."

For good measure, Jagger led Arcade Fire and the rest of the cast in playing a very nice goodbye serenade to departing cast member Kristen Wiig at the close of the show.

People ask if rock 'n' roll will ever die, and to that I say no. Why? Because kids are just too awesome to ever let it happen, that's why. And here are two compelling pieces of evidence: Exhibit A and Exhibit B. Play 'em loud. And somebody get these two in a "School of Rock"-type band together.

Well, today seems to be the day for festival announcements. In addition to the IBMA news, we also have YR15 -- a three-night bash in honor of local label Yep Roc Records' 15-year anniversary. That will happen Oct. 11-13 at Cat's Cradle with a lineup featuring some of the finest acts from the Grammy-winning label's roster, including Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock, Fountains of Wayne, John Doe and more. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday. Check here for details.

Also on the festival front, the latest TRKfest has been set for July 21. It will again be at Piedmont Biofuels in Pittsboro (with Haw River Ballroom as a backup venue if the weather's bad). Lineup details still to come.

RALEIGH -- North Carolina may or may not be the home of bluegrass. But for at least three years, it will be home of the World of Bluegrass.

As expected, the International Bluegrass Music Association announced on Wednesday that it will bring its weeklong convention and awards show to Raleigh for a three-year run starting in 2013. Russell Johnson and the Grass Cats opened and closed Wednesday's announcement ceremony on downtown's City Plaza by playing "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and other bluegrass classics.

But the big moment was mayor Nancy McFarlane unveiling a banner showing Raleigh's World of Bluegrass dates. Comprising a four-day business conference, an awards show and a three-day "Bluegrass Fan Fest" with more than 60 acts, next year's Raleigh edition of IBMA will be Sept. 23-29, 2013.

The 2011 convention's events in Nashville drew a reported 16,000 total visitors, more than half from out of town. Raleigh city officials project similar figures for next year's World of Bluegrass, estimating the local economic impact at more than $9.9 million.

On Wednesday, various speakers touted the event's bottom-line potential as well as North Carolina's illustrious bluegrass history. Earl Scruggs, Red Smiley, Doc Watson and George Shuffler are among the North Carolina natives who are in the IBMA's Bluegrass Hall of Fame, and Brevard's Steep Canyon Rangers shared the IBMA's artist-of-the-year award with Steve Martin last year.

Since 2005, the IBMA's World of Bluegrass has been in Nashville, where it's one of many awards shows. Seeking a higher profile, the IBMA board has been looking to relocate the show. More than a dozen cities made overtures, with Raleigh, Nashville, Cincinnati and Louisville, Ky., emerging as major contenders.

"One thing that really sold us on Raleigh was all the options here and how compact they are," said IBMA board member Jon Weisberger. "We don't have to choose whether or not to do shows indoors or outdoors, we can do both. And the convention center, amphitheater and other venues are all right here."

The Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts complex will also be a venue, along with other downtown nightclubs and Fayetteville Street. New IBMA board member William Lewis likened World of Bluegrass to Hopscotch, the successful rock festival that happens every September in Raleigh.

"We think this will be like a bluegrass version of Hopscotch," said Lewis, who is also executive director of Raleigh-based PineCone (Piedmont Council of Traditional Music). "It's an event that will seize the synergy of downtown and engage audiences and venues beyond just music -- photographers, artists, galleries. It could be a signature event for downtown."

The city is making what is being billed as a "huge" announcement of a cultural event Wednesday -- and signs point to the International Bluegrass Music Association. City representatives could not be reached for comment Tuesday; but if all goes as expected, the IBMA will be holding its 2013 awards show and convention in Raleigh.

The IBMA awards currently reside in Nashville, site of the 2012 awards show in September. IBMA representatives have been mulling a move for some time and they came to Raleigh in March to check out the city's facilities, reportedly coming away impressed. They were scheduled to vote on the matter at a board meeting the following month. In a development that is probably not coincidental, William Lewis (executive director of Raleigh-based PineCone, the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music) was just appointed to the IBMA's board of directors.

UPDATE: A more complete story about this can be found here.

"Marley"
Grade: A
Cast: Bob Marley with friends, family and associates
Director: Kevin MacDonald
Length: 145 minutes
Rating: PG-13

The late great Bob Marley's music has been in the air for so long that it takes some effort to ponder a time when it didn't exist. But long before reggae became stoner wallpaper for hacky sack enthusiasts, he was just another musician trying to be heard -- even if his hardscrabble circumstances were more dire than most.

"Marley," director Kevin MacDonald's epic and fascinating documentary about the reggae king, manages the remarkable feat of covering all the bases from large to small. It's fittingly grand, giving a scale of just how massive a figure Marley remains; he was an icon who could inspire cease-fires because both sides worshipped him, with an appeal spanning cultures, continents and now time. Only Muhammad Ali and Michael Jackson rival him as 20th century black popular culture's greatest figures.

At the same time, "Marley" is chock full of details that make his story palpable. You'll get something from this film no matter how much or how little you think you already know about the man.

It's all the more remarkable how well "Marley" turned out given that MacDonald is the project's third director (after Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme both bowed out), a telltale troubled-production red flag. Throw in the film's two-and-a-half-hour length and the Marley family's involvement, and you have a recipe for indulgent hagiography.

Yet "Marley" is anything but, portraying its subject and his life as both brave and flawed. It's full of larger-than-life interludes, yet some of the film's most emotional moments belong to his daughter Cedella, whose disappointment in her father is still evident 31 years after his death.

After showing an African slave port, "Marley" moves to its subject's Jamaican homeland with stunningly beautiful fly-over shots of the misty rural hill country where he grew up. Born of mixed race to a teenage mother and a white British soldier in his 60s, young Bob grew up as a "half-caste" who had to earn every meal and was not accepted by either side.

The fire that stoked within Marley would never abate. One of the film's most poignant scenes shows two of Marley's white relatives listening to "Cornerstone," a song inspired by his white family's rejection of him. Clearly shaken, his half-sister notes the irony that Bob is the Marley the world knows now.

More than three decades past Marley's death, you'd think his trail would be pretty cold by now. But "Marley" presents an amazing and varied cast going all the way back to his mother and first schoolteacher, along with various friends, relatives, lovers, associates and even a few neighbors in the Delaware town where he worked for a few years as forklift driver at the Chrysler plant. In people's descriptions as well as period footage of Marley onstage and off, his chrisma is apparent.

The music is, of course, amazing. "Marley" does a fantastic job of putting it in context as an outgrowth of ska, with elements drawn from gospel and American pop and soul. In early photographs of Marley's band the Wailers, they look like the Temptations in their matching suits. Marley's bandmates get plenty of camera time, too, especially Bunny Livingston's soft-shoe demonstration of reggae's signature rhythmic style (perfectly synced to the background music).

"Marley" touches on its subject's ramblin' ways and the unseemly post-death squabbling over his estate without dwelling on either too much, which is honestly just as well because it ultimately doesn't matter. Even knowing that Marley had 11 kids (confirmed, at least) by seven different women, you just can't resist the man as he's presented here. As one of his girlfriends summarizes, "We still couldn't hate him for it."

As you'd expect, live-performance scenes are a big part of the film, and "Marley" has some great ones. The 1978 peace concert in Jamaica, where Marley brought the country's main political rival leaders onstage and made them clasp hands as his band throbbed away, remains an incredible piece of political as well as musical theater.

Throughout, MacDonald's attention to detail is impressive, cannily interweaving archival footage and photos with modern-day scenes and a killer soundtrack. As the camera traverses the numbered streets of Kingston's Trench Town district, the song playing is "Natty Dread," with lyrics counting off those same streets. And the gospel-style demo of "No Woman, No Cry" with Peter Tosh on piano adroitly shows Marley's debt to American spirituals.

But popular music's debt to him is still far greater. See this film and find out just how much.

In the music-culture dictionary that only exists inside my head, the definition for the word "likable" consists of nothing more than a picture of the B-52's -- because they really are about as appealing and easy to like as pop music gets. Three-plus decades removed from their origins as that tacky little dance band from Georgia, the B-52's remain one of those consensus acts that everyone from stoner freaks to uptight jocks can abide. Come on, now, who hasn't cut a rug to "Rock Lobster" or  "Love Shack" before?

They'll be in the Triangle this weekend to headline Saturday's Band Together benefit show in Cary. For details on that and lots more about the band's history, see the interview with Keith Strickland in Friday's paper.

So if you're a high school student who would like to get your "Glee" on (only in a much cooler way), here's your chance: Community Chorus Project is looking for a few good singers. A few score good singers, actually.

Local arts entrepreneur Lauren Hodge assembled the initial Community Chorus Project last year, which debuted with fine performances of R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep." Recorded and filmed at Manifold Recording Studio with arrangements by Shana Tucker and The Beast's Eric Hirsh, videos went out far and wide, earning the approval of R.E.M. Now they're looking to do it again in August, this time covering Radiohead, Ben Folds Five, Bruno Mars and others. Members of Lost in the Trees, Megafaun and The Old Ceremony are among the local musicians participating.

If you want in, auditions will be May 12 at UNC-Chapel Hill. For details, go here.