3 Diva’s To Compare

Philadelphia ended it’s week long LGBT Equality Forum in style with the Sunday Out at the Piazza at Northern Liberties. Closing the show was 3 new dance music pop divas.

First on stage was Samantha Marq, I love her song “Supergirl” (you can download it for free from her website www.samanthamarq.com  I ended up paying for it on Itunes, but I thought it was worth it.) Samantha was the one out of the 3 that impressed me the most, she's got a great voice. Like the others she just had a backing track for the music, but I could actually hear her sing, and the music and background vocals didn’t drown her out. She sang 2 other songs, one was a new one that didn’t really stand out but on the 3rd one she called people to come up on stage and dance with her and her rapper.


 You would think some artists might be afraid to do that but not Samantha. I find it funny that at this type of event everybody was so into showing off that they danced without interfering with her singing or performing. Speaking of namesakes she has a kind of Samantha Fox vibe in looks and music and she comes across as very friendly and sincere.

 Next up was  Kristine Elezaj, sorry to say she impressed me the least. Yes she is super hot especially in the skin tight glitter outfit and the DJ presenter kept remarking on it ad nauseam, but she reminded me too much of Britney Spears and even had the mic head set. Her dancers were fun but I’m not sure how much live singing she did and the backing track completely drowned her out. Her songs were OK but nothing blew me away.

The evening ended with the much anticipated Agnes Carlsson. In her home country of Sweden she won their version of American Idol in 2005 and has 3 albums and many top ten hits to her name. I liked her material the best. She sang “Love, Love, Love”, then her 2 dance stompers, “On and On”, and the #1 Billboard club hit “Release Me”. Her dancers were hot but again the backing track kind of drowned out her vocals, she has a great voice it was just hard to hear.

I loved that both Samantha and Kristine stayed around after their performances to talk to people and take pics, which I didn’t do because I waited for Agnes to come on hoping she would do the same, however after her performance she was hurriedly whisked away. There was only about a dozen people following after her down the street to take pics, not sure why she felt the need to leave so quickly, it’s wasn’t like a crowd of hundredths waiting around. I did follow the crowd, and was lucky enough to get a picture with her just before she motioned that she needed to go inside to fix her make-up, she said she would come back, but I wasn’t so sure, although her limousine seemed to be waiting outside. I managed to ask her when her album would be coming out in the USA, she had a hard time understanding me but finally responded “after the summer”. For now you can buy her single “Release Me” in various mixes on Itunes or Amazon. Outside of the album mix, I recommend the Jason Nevins Remix.

I hope the Equality Forum bring us more musical guests next year.