I grabbed M.I.A.'s boob

It was during the first of her two-night (and very sold out) stand at the Echoplex. It was during the encore, when she decided to roll out onto the outstretched hands of the rabid crowd in front of her. Only when she rolled over onto her stomach, it was right on top of me (that's what I get for working my way down into the heart of the pit). If I didn’t do something, the star of the show was going to go crashing to the floor. Not sexy. So I put both my hands up to brace her fall. In my right hand I had her arm. Right there in my left hand? Boob city. The inadvertent grab didn’t seem to faze her. She just kind of rolled back towards the stage, where a handler lowered her back down.

The show? Good times. The crowd was well into it. Enough that I watched a couple of heated exchanges almost result in full-on fights down in the pit (one between two girls). DJ Low Budget rocked the crowd with a mix of Baltimore clubbed versions of current hits. But when it was half past M.I.A.’s appointed set time of 10PM, the natives began growing restless. “Bitch, come out now!” wailed a young lady beside me. The same one that kept nailing me with her huge purse, like some prop out of “The Devil Wears Prada.” But down front at an M.I.A. show? Not so much.

When she finally came out to do her thing, all was forgiven. She ran through hits from “Arular” and numbers from the upcoming “Kala,” with “Boyz” and “Bird Flu” getting the biggest response from the partisan crown. I was partial to “Twenty Dollar,” which rides a slowed-down groove lifted from New Order’s “Blue Monday.” But the real winner of the new batch of tunes is “Jimmy,” a Technicolor explosion of Love Unlimited strings and a disco beat that’s on some Donna Summer “I Feel Love” shit. Awesome. Buy the album when it drops 8/21.