BY S. EDWARDS

The last time I saw Madonna on stage was her televised performance of “La Isla Bonita” with Gogol Bordello (whom I love, love, love) at Al Gore’s 2007 Live Earth concert. She seemed out of breath, out of shape (relatively speaking), and generally out of sync. But judging by her in-the-round performance last night at the Wachovia Center, the last year, which included her tabloid divorce from Guy Ritchie (reportedly being finalized today), has been good to her.

The 50-year old dynamo emitted a haze of brilliance (as captured on my four-year old Nokia phone) and never missed a beat as she shook her saucy stuff for a near-capacity crowd who paid up to $350 face value for the privilege (or $613 including the Madonna-less VIP party). Whether she was strumming a guitar, grinding with gypsy musicians, arriving to the stage in a 1935 Auburn Speedster, playfully engaging the audience (or antagonizing them: She told a man in the front, “You need to work out more if you’re gonna wear that shirt”), slamming down on her bejeweled kneepads, or showing up her much, much younger dancers, Madonna was excessively precise. Impossibly flawless. Or, as Chris Allen, the gentleman who flew in from Las Vegas and who said he was one of her Grammy dancers many years ago, put it: “She’s one remarkable android.”

If you can manage to get your hands on tickets for her Saturday-night performance in Atlantic City (only singles are available through Ticketmaster, but this is A.C., so if you know someone …), expect to hear a healthy dose of classics like “Borderline,” “Bonita,” and “Vogue”) as well as plenty of material from her more recent, less interesting body of work. But mostly, expect shock, awe, and a performance easily worth the price of admission.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at the Electric Factory, October 7th

Ten words or less … Imagine if Leonard Cohen were a prolific, shameless showman.

Strengths … Nick Cave is both high priest and card shark, the sort of reverend who finishes the Sunday benediction then deals a round of five-card stud in the shed out back. He and the Bad Seeds came on stage looking like proper gentlemen. But a couple of songs in, the suit jackets came off, the shirts untucked. One song more and they started undoing their buttons.

Cave is about 50 years old now, but twentysomethings comprised the majority of his audience at the Electric Factory. All you can say is, he did it: He got older and retained his cool. Even the kids understand. And his set at the Electric Factory galvanized the faithful. He resurrected “Tupelo,” from 1985’s The First Born Is Dead, as a kind of tell-it-like-it-is gospel song — the people pray for salvation, but God keeps watching, you know, from a distance. “Weeping Song” swung like jazz and “Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry,” seemed somehow elemental, like the sheet music and lyrics had been found, cracked and yellowed, author unknown, just floating in the breeze. The new songs from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! had their teeth sharpened in the trip from the studio to the stage.

And Cave is still volatile enough that when his keyboard didn’t work the first time he laid his hands on it, he sneered and kicked the thing off its stand. He pissed off his right-hand man, Mick Harvey, by telling him where to stand one too many times. And he looked ready to gut a tech who had trouble unwrapping an electrical cord from around his mike stand. But Cave was downright warm toward the audience, singling out individual people to sing to throughout the night. When he delivered the pretty, I’ve-found-Jesus ballad “Into My Arms,” he appeared to soothe his own savage breast — and set the audience swooning. All night long he was a tender menace, and could have had any girl in the room.

Weaknesses … The set list was short for an artist of Cave’s longevity: just 90 minutes, including encores. He could have played another hour without wearing out his welcome. Oh, and then there’s the mustache. Cave is overcompensating for his balding pate with a porn-star special of thick black hair across his upper lip. It “works” for him only because the caterpillar lip fits his eccentric persona.

Verdict … Cave is the most hyper-literate songwriter currently working in rock. And after performing for roughly 35 years now, he seems to grow right up out of the stage. I wish you could have been there.

I thought I must have read the press release wrong yesterday: “AC/DC to bring ‘Black Ice’ to Wachovia Center on November 17th … Tickets at $92.50 will go on sale this Saturday, September 20.”

$92.50? To see AC/DC? Whether you sit in the front row or the nosebleeds? No way, I thought to myself. So I fired off an e-mail to a Comcast-Spectacor spokesperson who confirmed my darkest fears: $92.50. For all seats.

Now don’t get me wrong: I crank it whenever “Dirty Deeds” or “Back in Black” comes on the radio. And “For Those About to Rock” is one of those songs that I play at my desk when I need an attitude adjustment (oddly, so is Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast“). But this is good-old, working-class, screamed-not-sung rock-’n'-roll. And a flat $92.50 ticket price (think of what you’re going to spend after those dreaded service and “convenience” fees) — whether in this economy or in a thriving one, whether you’re close enough to feel the spit of singer Brian Johnson or so far away that you’re left to watch the whole thing on video screens — is just unconscionable.

So this Saturday at 10 a.m., hug your kids, water the lawn, eat an omelette, take a stroll through the park … hell, I don’t care … cut your friggin’ ear off. But whatever you do, do not buy tickets for this ripoff of a show.

We’ve been hearing for a while about the reunion album from LaBelle, the Patti LaBelle-led trio that funked the ’70s to high heaven with “Lady Marmalade,” and we finally have something to show for it. Here is the first single, “Roll Out,” featuring Wyclef Jean and a very annoyingly synthesized Patti LaBelle voice. The complete album, Back to Now, is set to hit stores on October 21st.

Robert Fripp! Adrian Belew! Tony Levin! Oh my! On Monday and Tuesday night, legendary prog-rock outfit King Crimson — in a two-drummer quintet format — held court at Glenside’s Keswick Theatre for two sold-out shows. But this reviewer wonders if this shouldn’t be the band’s farewell tour …

In 10 Words or Less … There’s one fewer King Crimson fan in this world.

Strengths … The best thing that King Crimson has going for it at this point is its members’ reputations and pedigrees. Founder/guitarist Robert Fripp is a mad genius (you’d know his work from his bizzare collaborations with Brian Eno and David Bowie’s Heroes). Fans view the enigmatic Peter Gabriel-collaborator Tony Levin, who either plays something called a Chapman Stick or a bass with dowels attached to his flying fingers, as some sort of mystical musical shaman. And don’t forget frontman/guitarist Adrian Belew, who has worked with such notable folks as Frank Zappa, Talking Heads, Tori Amos, and Nine Inch Nails. And then there is Crimson’s massively impressive catalog of indiosyncratic, logarithm rock. All of this should add up to a brilliant night of live music. And it certainly used to, based on the several times I’ve seen Crimson over the years. For examples, check out this TV performance of “Elephant Talk” and this 1995 take on “Red.”

Weaknesses … So what you also need to know about Robert Fripp is that he is one peculiar little English prick. Fans like to exchange stories about how Fripp goes out of his way to avoid any interaction with them. No autographs. No pictures. Never. At the Keswick show, security made a huge point of “no cell phones, no cameras.” No cell phones? Are you kidding me? But that’s nothing compared to Fripp’s new level of withdraw: He is completely enshrouded by his stacks of equipment and is invisible to the audience, with the exception of his little head — topped by big old black headphones that further separate him from the rest of the people in the room and onstage — which occasionally moves. He could be back there checking his stocks or downloading porn for all we know. But hey, lots of “artists” are “eccentric,” and for years, we’ve been forgiving of Fripp’s persona (or attracted to it) because the music has been so damn good. No longer. The performance was imprecise, lackluster, and laughably horrible at times, as Belew’s glares and shaking head certainly acknowledged.

Verdict … I’m sorry to the guy from down South who was eating bread dosed with liquid acid at Glenside’s Plush before the show. He made some comment about King Crimson being “rusty.” I assumed he had just lost one too many brain cells to render any kind of credible opinion. I was wrong. As was King Crimson. So wrong.

ILLUSTRATION: From the band’s 1969 debut, In the Court of the Crimson King

Hottie local guitarist Kruno Spisic (pictured) brings his gypsy jazz guitar sounds to Chris’ Jazz Café for two shows on Saturday night. Think Django Reinhardt … Shakespeare gets a gay twist in Mauckingbird Theatre Company’s Romeo & Juliet, opening this weekend at the Adrienne … For more traditionally told Bard tales, it’s Shakespeare in Clark Park’s As You Like It through Sunday (and as a bonus, check out Vietnam’s new West Philly BYO just up the road) … A few days ago, there were no tickets for Saturday’s Earth, Wind & Fire show at the Borgata, and now there are. Go figure. … It’s First Friday, so if you haven’t been to Old City in a while, seems like it will be a nice night to get down there and do that gallery thing (especially before those severe thunderstorms roll in on Saturday). (And in case you didn’t know, the Main Line does First Friday, too.) … We love the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville! Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original) tonight and Easy Rider on Sunday? To hell with Netflix! … And if you’ve bought into the whole NASCAR fantasy, you need to be in the mountains on Sunday for the Pocono 500.

When news broke of New York governor Eliot Spitzer’s very expensive escapades, I knew that the name of the call girl and aspiring musician sounded mighty familiar. Turns out that the song that everyone’s been cringing at on Ashley Dupre’s MySpace page and in this YouTube video was produced by none other than Simon Illa, the profoundly physically challenged music producer I profiled in Philadelphia magazine in December 2006. (At two seconds into “What We Want,” you can hear Illa tag his name into the song.)

Reached at his Atlanta studio this afternoon, Illa, who apparently lives in complete isolation from the outside world, said that he didn’t know about the scandal until he started getting calls from an NBC News reporter. He called Dupre to find out what it was all about and says her response was, “Pick up the New York Times. I can’t talk about it.”

Illa, who terms Dupre’s talent “nothing special,” says he has no further comment on her situation and respects her right to privacy.

Illa photo by Chris Crisman.

Simon Illa Is Living Large [Philly Mag]

Philly got one notch cooler last night. I know this because my cab driver nearly drove off the Walnut Street bridge after he asked who I was going to see at World Café Live and I shot back with a proud “Wyclef!” (Alas, I couldn’t sneak him in.)

Wired 96.5 threw one hell of a party, inviting the reggae-rap-pop star/songwriter/producer to take the stage for an exclusive group of call-in winners. He performed crowd-pleasers like the old-school “Gone Till November,” some of his myriad joint efforts like Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie,” plus his latest hit, “Sweetest Girl,” and others from new album Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant.

Read the rest on Impresario, our new arts and events blog.

Not sure why Philly boy Todd Young didn’t do this in the first place, what with this being 2008 at and all, but he finally got around to posting a YouTube video for his “Barack Obama Song,” which you first heard here last week. So go waste valuable time and do that viral thing that you love doing so much.

Check out Impresario, our new daily arts and events blog.

The last time we checked in with Silvertide, Northeast Philadelphia’s great rock-and-roll hope, it was 2002 and they’d just signed with Clive Davis’s J Records and were bidding their hometown goodbye at South Street’s Theater of Living Arts, where most of the band members weren’t old enough to drink. Much has changed since then — the TLA is now the refurbished Fillmore, and backstage before their show on Saturday, singer Walt Lafty (pictured at Saturday’s soundcheck) exuded a sense of been-here, done-this calm as he chain-smoked on a couch. Then he stretched out his long legs, and his knees crunched like Rice Krispies in a bowl of milk. “Did you hear that?” he moans. “That’s what I get for jumping off amp stacks every night.”

Read the rest on Impresario, our new arts and events blog.