Jewel Opens Tour `This Way' Minus Guitar By CURTIS ROSS mailto:cross@tampatrib.com </cgi-bin/compose?mailto=1&msg=MSG1024224799.8&start=361486&len=2709&src=&type=x&to=cross%40tampatrib%2ecom&cc=&bcc=&subject=&body=&curmbox=F000000001&a=0c84c35837dfb00171b12af7acdef573> Published: Jun 15, 2002 TAMPA - 

Jewel took the stage minus her guitar Friday night. The collarbone and rib she broke when a horse threw her in April hampered her playing skills, she said. ``But I will be thrilling you with my dance moves,'' she joked. Actually, the singer-songwriter did play guitar during the show's solo portion - ``I can't strum, but I can finger- pick a little,'' she explained to the crowd of 2,425 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Carol Morsani Hall. Friday's show was opening night for Jewel's U.S. tour. But she and her band - keyboardist Steve George, drummer Trey Gray, bassist T-Bone Hannon, and guitarists Stuart Mathis and Mark Oakley - were in fine form, having just completed a European tour. If Jewel felt the need to compensate for her impaired guitar skills, she put the effort into her vocals, which were far more powerful and soulful than she's captured on record, although her latest album, last year's ``This Way,'' comes a lot closer to the energy of her live performances than have previous albums. Jewel mined ``This Way'' for much of her set and it provided many of the highlights. The single ``Standing Still'' was a brisk and pleasing piece of alternative pop, and ``Serve the Ego'' and ``Everybody Needs Someone Sometime'' were late-set highlights. Older favorites also got a big response from the crowd. ``You Were Meant For Me'' got the crowd into sing-along mode, which Jewel encouraged by having the band play quietly and letting the crowd carry the song for a chorus. She knows how to encourage a crowd and when to discipline it, as well. She played the opening chords of ``Grey Matter'' over and over, waiting for the rowdy crowd to quiet down. Just as it did, a lone voice called out, prompting a laughing Jewel to exclaim, ``Shut the ... up!''