RARA DESTINY "Making A Connection"

by julieanne rau

I'm happy to announce that Live Music is doing well in Second Life. Gia's Cabaret welcomed back Rara Destiny on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008. A little investigation and I found that Rara’s first gig at Gia’s, she offered to fill in for Jackdog Snook who for some reason didn't make the gig and she was in the crowd and stepped in. Now I know that Gia's pays its performers a salary and at the time she agreed to play for tips. Now you know why I said Live Music is going well in Second Life®.

Actually her set also included a surprise, as her real life sister Jessy Sommer was at her house and is a singer in her own right. So what was so special about the performance you ask? Well, they magically transformed the fashion club into a smokey coffee shop. You know the kind that has a stage where performers come on up and do their thing? It’s a good and bad situation. Clearly, you can see the talent is there. The two are very comfortable with themselves and the duets they performed were perfect pitch. Both with a strong Aussie accent and a melody in them that made songs like Norah Jones "Don't Know Why" and the Monkees "Day Dream Believer". Both have great singing range and compliment each other.

What also made the night different was light hearted approach of bantering between the two sisters as they discussed what to sing next. My only criticism is that without a set playlist, the crowd feels like there is a party going on and they are not invited to it. At least, that is how I felt. Don't get me wrong, I like to see the performers have fun but there was WAY too much laughing in the songs. Of the 16 song set, there was giggling in 3 of them; part due to a character named Juice who was frantically running around the venue. I guess you had to be there to see the humor in it. That coupled with the odd coughing sound ruins the performance for me. I know they can do better and I'm excited to hear them again.

They really are the type of performer I am interested in seeing and reviewing. They also take requests and someone asked for a Green Day Song. I was surprised that they googled it right there and then and debated on whether to give it a go or not. On the plus side, I can't comment enough on the voices... especially as a duet. No music back tracks either, just guitar accompaniment which is always impressive to me. Only one avatar on stage as there wasn't two computers in Rara’s house so the picture you see is Rara and we didn't get to see Jessy’s avatar (yet anyways!)

Basically, I would chalk the evening up to two girls having fun singing songs they are comfortable with. Complete with a song about "Breasts", you can tell they were just two sisters having fun. Even I grabbed a coffee for the night. They ended the set by apologizing that they had to leave because Jessy had a set and needed the only PC in the house. I can forgive that, my only comment would be to try and make a connection with the crowd next time.Let them have a party too and not just watch yours. They ended the night with "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers (I think!) but the song fits into what I am talking about. We want you to draw us into to your party, let us lean on you so that we can enjoy it also.

All in all, criticism aside and concentrating on the music; these girls are high on my list of people to watch! I'm not a fan yet, but I can be!

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ED NOTE: Jessy Sommer is Rara Destiny's ex husbands daughter. Our apologies for any other inference.