Poniedziałek 13 Lip 2009, 2:39
Sat 11 Jul – American Idols Live! Tour 2009
After having been a huge American Idol fan for years, I finally went to an AI concert. Why, you ask? Adam Lambert.
I'm still disappointed Adam didn't win, but even as I was voting landline in one hand and cellphone in the other I knew how things were going to end. I knew it was going to be like on that Simpsons episode where Bart runs for class president and everybody loves his speeches and everything points to him winning, but the day of the actual voting everybody forgets and Bart loses to lame-o Martin. That is what happened on AI. Danny's pastor was calling on all the flock to vote for Kris (the other christian contestant), everybody in Kris's town was being encouraged to vote, etc. While Adam's fans just met the next day, "Did you vote? No. Did you? No."
At the end of the day, who is going to sell more music? Did you know that for every presidential election 7-11 makes its own prediction and that they've never been wrong? They make coffee cups for Republicans and for Democrats and the one they sell the most is without fail the winner that election. If we'd do the same with American Idol to see who the top seller is going to be, we'd need to look no further than the concert shops. Adam's T-shirts were flying out the door and in all the time I was in the line (like 25 minutes) I just saw one Kris T-shirt being sold. They didn't even had them handy as they did with all the others 'cause nobody was asking for them.
But enough of that, you want to know what happened at the concert yesterday, right? Here it goes:
It's kind of funny but every performer is introduced according to their final rank on the show, for most a bitter reminder of how far they got.
So first we got #10 Michael Sarver, who only got to do a couple of songs: I'm in Love With A Girl and Closer. He was good.
#9 The beautiful Megan Joy, also with 2 songs: Put Your Records On and Tears Dry On Their Own.
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#8 Scott MacIntyre did Bend & Break and A Thousand Miles. Scott was very good and very funny. To avoid having to walk him to his spot on the stage they put him at the piano and just elevated the piano from a place under the stage. They all used this elevator at some point but with Scott it came in very handy.
#7 Lil Rounds was the first performer with more than 2 songs: First she did Be Without You and No One. She was ok but then she did Beyonce's Single Ladies and with that she had everybody singing, aided by some karaoke style lyrics on the big screen. I don't know about you but to me that song is not the same without Andy Samberg and Bobby Moynihan dancing.
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#6 Anoop Desai. He has the funniest intro images, very corny with clouds on the background. He was ok but maybe a little bit of a let-down since Lil had left all the audience hyped with the sing along and then Anoop went all ballady on us with Always On My Mind, Mad and finally My Prerogative.
#5 Matt Giraud. I was never a fan but yesterday I saw why the judges kept bringing him back. He was pretty good. He did Hard To Handle, Georgia On My Mind and You Found Me.
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Then we got a duet by Megan and Lil singing Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You. Scott and Matt did a cool piano duet of Tell Her About It. Apparently they didn't know who to pair Michael with and this was lucky for him cause he got to sing Suspicious Minds solo. Finally Michael, Megan, Scott, Lil, Anoop and Matt did Beggin' all together.
20 Minute intermission.
#4 Allison Iraheta. Starts the second half of the concert all happy with So What, followed by a great performance of Cry Baby and ended with Barracuda which was kind of silly and a waste of her voice.
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#3. Danny Gokey, the first performer with 4 songs. He kind of wasted an opportunity with PYT cause he just sang it like nothing, never once mentioning Michael. Continued with Maria Maria, What Hurts The Most and before finishing with My Wish he gave this long speech about his wife and following one's dreams.
#2 Adam Lambert. The audience went crazy even before he hit the stage with Whole Lotta Love, then moving on to Starlight (complete with a pretty light show) and Mad World (Last.fm doesn't let me embed videos, so check it out here). At this point Allison came onstage again and they sang a duet of Slow Ride. The whole house sang along without the aid of lyrics on the screen, and Adam and Allison had the audience eating out of the palms of their hands. Allison then left Adam to sing Life On Mars beautifully with a gigantic Mars behind him. Finally he took off his jacket, the whole place went crazy, and he ended with Fame and Let's Dance. Everybody was happy and almost voiceless from all the screaming.
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#1 Kris Allen sang Heartless, All The Things I've Done, Ain't No Sunshine, and Bright Lights. He didn't wear special clothes, make jokes or give speeches. He just went in and did his thing. He ended on a high note with Hey Jude, which had the whole stadium singing along again. The other idols joined him on stage to finish off Hey Jude, before the grand finale; a bunch of Disco Balls and a big performance from all the idols of Don't Stop Believing.
http://homepage.mac.com/evilchick/last/071209VI.jpg
All in all, you get 39 songs sang by 10 very good performers encapsulated in 3 hours of fun. Definitely worth the price of the ticket. What am I saying? Adam alone is worth the ticket price the rest are just cherries on the cake.