A San Jose re-cap pulled from the San Jose Idols’ show Post…
Ive never been to an Idols Live show before and attended this year pretty much for one reason: Carly Smithson. My tickets for the Idols Live show at the HP Pavilion were so-called …WARNING EXTREME SIDE STAGE VIEW seats bought through Ticketmaster early last month and they were located five rows back on the second tier of stadium seating but I could see the entire stage without obstruction and was surprisingly close to the action all things considered.
My group (me, my brother and my niece ) got there about twenty before seven for the show and parked free on the street about a block and a half a way from the venue. On the walk in we observed incoming fans and saw, for the most part, middle-aged people and young adults and not that many kids. I was surprised that the age of attendees, at least at first blush, skewed older than what I had anticipated. I went to the concession stand to buy a couple of bottles of water for the marathon ahead and got behind three of Cook Cougars buying beer and, of course, two were using credit cards. I was very thirsty by the time the second lady signed her receipt and then the concession guy relieved both water bottles of their caps because he said they are …a problem (read: potential projectiles) at concerts ¦go figure.
My trio sat down at exactly seven oclock and the arena was maybe twenty five percent full, so I knew it would be a while before the show began. The big side stage video screen is kind of an acute angle from my seat but still viewable, just a tad washed out. The two David Guitar Hero ads got rousing, surprisingly loud, cheers from the sparse crowd. The Master of Ceremonies and his bi-flavored Pop Tart didnt do much besides make enough noise to pull the crowd from the concourse. The MC told us to make more noise, we obliged him and about twenty after seven the lights dimmed and the curtain dropped.
Chikezie had quite an interesting arc on Idol in that his upbeat stuff played well consistently and his ballads, despite a splendid voice, tended to fall a bit flat. Resplendent in his maroon/brownish crushed velvet sport coat and black shirt and pants and looking a touch heavier than I remember him on the show Chikezie started off the show with a nice rousing version of a Donny Hathaway I Believe To My Soul. However by the time he got to his third and final song, a ballad, the crowd was ready for a light round of polite applause and the next Idol. Chikezie falsetto notes were stellar and nicely integrated.
Ramiele hit the stage with a Michael Jackson song and a whole lot of spunk. I know she is a small girl but she seemed to possess a rather sturdy frame for someone so slight. On the acute angle big screen her happy, pretty face was radiant. My niece laughingly noted that Ramy had finally worked out the …walking and singing at the same time thing. Ramiele excessive hand waving lent a trifle too much of pageant/parade air to the set for my taste. She sounded alright and her set shared a problem common with about half of the sets in the show. It was just too loud to enjoy the music and singing, just simply too loud. Ramiele didnt …Wow me and the crowd seemed consonant with my assessment rewarding her with polite applause.
Michael Johns was probably the biggest surprise of the evening for me. He sounded very good, almost great, had a generally solid set of the kind of songs that one should be singing at arena shows and he had command of the stage. The loudness of the entire production worked here, for some reason, better than on the rest of the too loud sets. Johns commented on the heat wave (he said ‹104 degrees lol) that is squatting over the Bay Area currently and it didnt sound like forced banter/filler in a way that some did during the evening. Nice set that went all too fast. In a nutshell, the crowd loved this guy before he stepped on the stage and even more when he exited.
Kristy Lee was likely the least warmly received Idol of the evening from the crowd and it might well have been her position between Michael and Carly. Her stock banter was pretty much canned cheese and her vocals seemed, especially the big notes, perhaps a bit frayed around the edges. Im not a country music guy, so this set might be a home run in some venues with a different audience. Kristy eyes seemed a little puffed, perhaps the lack of sleep on the bus is exacting a toll. But, all in all, she looked beautiful, sounded fine and I would be remiss in I didnt mention her hair. It is simply amazing, pure spun gold cascading over a lovely package of what could well be American Idol next country music star.
As the first strains of Evanescence Bring Me To Life started and Carly picture (which doesnt look all that much like her, by the way) came up on the big screen, an anticipatory roar builds from the gathered throng and it is spiked with a smattering of the, soon to be familiar, high-pitched Banshee wail from the youngins in the mix. She looks fantastic, a petite yet shapely image, vaguely gothic, with that angry intensity youd expect from a rocker but perhaps wasnt endearing enough for TV. Her banter is pure gratitude that contrasts sharply with her in performance attitude. Carly cuts through her set like the pro that she is, well, once was, and now perhaps will continue to be. Having listened to her earlier ALL OUT performances of this set at some of the other tour stops it is clear she is trimming a big note here and a shouted mid-song exhortation to the crowd there in the interest of preserving her voice and a wise choice it is, this tour is long and even the strongest voice will be challenged before mid-September. The acoustic lead in to Crazy On You is a fantastic change up to already great classic rock song and Carly tone shines there. I Drove All Night is a rock solid Celine cover but, like much of the program, way over amplified. Carly gets another big cheer, no squeals this time, and waits for it to die down to introduce her …Top 24 crying buddy ¦Brooke White.
Brooke rises from the stage at the piano playing her Top 12 triumph, The Beatles anthem Let It Be. Let face it Brooke White is hard not to like, her rough gravelly tone is so unique that you would recognize it hailing a cab on 57th street in New York at mid day. She possesses an ethereal quality to her that is just pretty darn (I was going to say DAMN but Brookie wouldnt like that. ) cool. Banging away at the piano with that kinky mane o gold framing the entire upper half of her slight frame she is radiant and sounds more relaxed than I ever have heard her sing. About halfway through her second song, 1, 2, 3, 4, I felt that something kind of went out of the performance and her final song Yellow, back at the piano, did nothing to bring it back. Brooke belted a few notes and they sounded surprisingly good and true so I think much of her tuning problems, on the show, where stress/breathing related. Group song leads to an intermission.
Jason Castro is the first act of the night that brings that excruciating high pitch squeal that only the young and female have the voice box to produce. And produce they do. If this Castro dude ever does decide to go ‹the Bob Marley route he might have five hundred children before he is through, because, wow, somebody out there loves this guy! Unfortunately, it isnt me. He sounds exactly the same live as he does on TV and his studio stuff and he kicks off his set, ukulele in hand, working the morbidly obese Hawaiian guy version of Over the Rainbow. Next up is Crazy, which is new, but new in a familiar kind of way. Castro vocals caress the lyrics like only he can, for better or worse. His closer, Daydream, was my favorite song of the set. Everything Jason did was greeted with squeals of delight. One of the people in my group said they heard a couple of boo birds, but I did not. As Carly has said, …Jason is Jason. But, definitely, the third loudest cheers of the night.
Syesha came out showing her pop chops with a cover of last summer smash hit Umbrella. I dont really care for the song so Ill just say Im quite glad that it was last summer megahit and not this summer megahit. Syesha gets a ton of praise from her fans for her great voice but Ive never really understood it. She did two ballads and to my ear her voice only really sounds good midrange because when she belts it is not, for me, an aurally satisfying experience. Well, needless to say she belted her heart out. Let me add, Syesha does look like a star, she projects well, has a killer body that her new dress shows off amply and the vast majority of the crowd enjoyed her set (and let her know it), Ill leave it there.
Archie came up through the floor singing Angels I never really liked this song but, of course, he sang it well. David Archuleta sings very, very well and his set went by quickly punctuated by an entirely unholy amount of high pitch squeals between songs. The girls truly love this guy and when they werent squealing they were telling him exactly that, also, at the top of their lungs. David Archuleta stage presence, beyond his amazing voice, is limited to that gape-mouthed grin liberally applied and a few shyly spoken words, so for me he is lacking severely in that area. Stand By Me was the highlight of the set, in my opinion, and after all the [ahem, manufactured] controversy about the Beautiful Girls sampling done on the show it was nice to hear this song sung the way David, Daduchelta and God apparently wanted it. Closing with the Grobin ballad didnt do his set justice and that primarily was because David Archuleta doesnt sing that song as convincingly as Josh does. Personally, if I were him I would have finished with Stand By Me/Beautiful Girls.
It was as if when the lights went dark after Archie set the crowd was replaced with a large group of blue Sesame Street muppets. The Cookie Monsters were out in force with the loudest, squealiest greeting of the night for David Cook. Unfortunately, the guys at the mixing board decided that one good auditory assault deserved another and they cranked it up to a heretofore unprecedented level as well. Every bass note literally became a shock wave and after every song some people left the arena (Perhaps, they were Archie fans up past their bedtime, who knows?) So how did he sound? Pretty damn good and I think he sounded better live than on Idol. His big notes still can verge on a shout more than note at times but he plowed through his set with an obvious joy in the whole experience. Also, if this singing thing doesnt work out he might have a future in the diary industry because if he can milk a cow half as well as he extracted the extra requested cheer from this willing audience he would be utterly amazing. Watching Mr. Cook performing at the end of this marathon parade of singers made me think that all is right atop the Idol universe for 2008.
