Although Futuresex’s “My Love” is already an internet phenomenon, most of these people don’t know it enough to realize it’s not a bathroom-break song, let alone to appreciate how much better it sounds with a Slash-sized guitar solo instead of an obligatory T.I. verse. It’s a deceptive tune, anyway, because it gives you the impression that everything on Futuresex sounds vaguely like “Sexy Back,” which couldn’t be further from the truth. The new album’s weirdo to the extreme, heavy on intricate segues and long outros – depending on how much willful postmodernism you’re willing to ascribe to a guy who used to be in N’Sync, you could say he’s assaulting the notion of songs as discrete objects, refashioning arrangements in mid-track and slapping multiple titles on them . . . and that’s before the inevitable spate of remixes shows up (speaking of which, Google “Sexy Back” “Remix” “Clipse” – now). At Avalon, Justin prepared the ground by throwing them the “Lovestoned/I Think She Knows” curveball. The song starts out as Neptunesy, martian-club sleaze, but around the five minute mark the mood shifts abruptly and it turns into the Timbaland version of a Coldplay song, stealing a piece of the chorus and re-centering itself as a repetitive, two-minute soft-focus chorus over guitars that chime and roll nautically like Sonic Youth’s “The Diamond Sea.” In person it’s no less striking than on record: there’s nothing to make of it except the odd, unexpected, completely irrational beauty of it.

If you’d been spinning Futuresex for 24 hours straight you could have quibbled with the setlist – he kills time with B-listed Justified material like “Take It From Here” and “Last Night,” omits the new bongos-and-organ funk jam “Damn Girl” that’s gonna be on everyone’s back-to-school mixtapes, but trots out “Until the End of Time,” which on the new album is instantly recognizable as a Prince homage but without the back-masked snare hits devolves into generic quiet-storm territory. For what it’s worth, he looks like he’s having fun doing it, though: over-the-top conducting the orchestra in multiple fake endings, strapping on acoustic guitars, market-testing new dance moves that accent how his dick and ass work. Pretty sure the new “What Goes Around” sailed over the top of folks’ heads, but it’s Futuresex’s sleeper-hit a la  “Cry Me a River,” and it allows him another big shining Chris Martin moment: he delivers it sitting at the piano (very musicianly!), the backing singers filling the harmonies in a round, which forms a nice rhyme with the chorus (in case you hadn’t guessed, what goes around – all together – comes all the way back around). If it isn’t on next season’s Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack, I’m cancelling my podcast subscription.

Other omissions: not a single N’Sync cover on the menu (no biggie -- by the Justified tour he’d already excised everything but “Gone,” which he wrote), and no rap, presumbaly because T.I., Snoop Dogg, and 3-6 Mafia have better things to do (like Entourage cameos?) than hit the clubs in support of someone else’s record. That left, for the encore, a teasing verse of “Sweet Dreams” – further cementing its stature as the most overused song in clubs, by everyone, ever – into “Sexy Back.” Which, great song and all, but the surprise is how little of him there really is on it. Once you’ve got a Tim stand-in baritoning the “VIP/Drinks on me” part, the keyboardist doing the punch-in “Yeah”s, and 2000 estrogen-crazed senoritas chanting the “Go head be gone with it” part, you’re down to a dude jumping up and down on stage shouting trash into a microphone hooked up to a cheap distortion pedal. You probably go to better clubs than I do, but that sure looked like business as usual.

Setlist
Cry Me a River
Senorita
My Love
Like I Love You/Smells Like Teen Spirit
Until the End of Time
Lovestoned/I Think She Knows
Take It From Here
What Goes Around
Last Night
Rock Your Body
Sweet Dreams
Sexy Back

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