Winehouse does "DJ battle" in London pub

By Cindy Martin

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - British jazz singer Amy Winehouse took part in a "DJ battle" late on Thursday at a pub near her home in north London, and while appreciated by fans in the crowd, the consensus was that she lost.

The 24-year-old, whose struggle against drug addiction and troubled personal life have made countless headlines in recent months, appeared at the Camden Monarch where she was expected to take on DJ Bioux.

But although she stood behind the record decks and chose the music for the 30-minute set, Winehouse did not don the earphones, mix the songs or try to interact with the crowd.

For some fans, it didn't matter.

"There's a big buzz around her," said Emma from Watford. "I don't know what it is about her, but she creates a massive buzz. As soon as she walked in there were flashes and it was great to see her."

Winehouse's selection underlined her musical influences, with the set including 60s classics like The Supremes ("You Can't Hurry Love"), Curtis Mayfield ("Move On Up"), and Jackie Wilson ("I Get the Sweetest Feeling").

But it failed to win over some critics, who felt Winehouse's celebrity status dominated the event rather than the music.

She was confronted by a wall of flashing cameras and the mobile phone cameras of people in the crowd.

"It was a bit strange because normally when Amy Winehouse does something it becomes a sort of strange spectacle, because she behaves bizarrely, but on this occasion it was the crowd behaving bizarrely," said Chris Elwell-Sutton, a writer for London newspaper the Evening Standard.

"In other words, she was just trying to do a bit of DJ-ing, but because it was quite a small venue and she's so famous instead of dancing to the music like normal fans would, everyone was crowded around the DJ box trying to take pictures of her.

"So it was less like a gig and more like a photo shoot or a press conference," he said.

Winehouse was rushed to hospital last month after collapsing, and her father told a newspaper she was suffering from the lung condition emphysema. Her publicists have since backtracked, saying she had a "touch of" the condition.

The Grammy award-winning singer has made a tentative comeback to the stage in recent weeks, with performances at the Nelson Mandela tribute concert and the Glastonbury music festival, where reaction to her performance was mixed.

Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil is due to be sentenced on July 21 after pleading guilty to attacking a pub landlord in 2006 and then trying to pervert the course of justice. Fielder-Civil, 26, faces up to five years in prison.

(Writing by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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