Bailey Rae & Legend: They Sure Beat Watching TV

(By Samir Hussein -- Getty Images)

Nothing punctuates a bittersweet television moment quite like Corrine Bailey Rae's single "Like a Star." The song has enhanced touching TV moments everywhere from "Medium" to "Grey's Anatomy." It's even been used in a "Saturday Night Live" sketch poking fun at romantic comedies.

But Bailey Rae is no mere soundtrack songstress. At Merriweather Post Pavilion on Saturday, the British singer showed she can belt out strong ballads as well. She ripped through the powerful "Seasons Change," the album-closer on her self-titled debut, as well as her new single, "I'd Like To," and even did justice to a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Loving You." In fact, "Like a Star," for all its popularity, turned out to be the blandest vocal of her set.

Headliner John Legend (whose single "Save Room," from his new album, "Once Again," has also been making the rounds on TV shows) could give Bailey Rae pointers on handling mass appeal -- he's an expert at courting the mainstream without allowing his work to be reduced to Muzak. For every "Ordinary People," Legend performed something like "Stereo," a slick rant on gold diggers that was more elegant than the one recorded by his friend Kanye West.

Legend freshened up "Number One" (from "Get Lifted") by replacing the original music with the boom bap of Boogie Down Productions' "I'm Still #1." And "P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)" received a D.C.-specific remix with Legend singing over the Blackbyrds' "Rock Creek Park."

Bailey Rae and Legend joined forces for a version of the Donny Hathaway-Roberta Flack duet "Where Is the Love?," which easily could have come off as boob tube treacle, but instead the twosome delivered an energy and chemistry that prime time just isn't ready for.

-- Sarah Godfrey