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Monday, August 18, 2008
8/18: Idols in concert in Gwinnett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
After mocking various critics who were forced to watch this concert tour, I come in knowing the purpose of “American Idols Live” is somewhat different from most concerts. It’s merely a celebration of ourselves and the folks we picked to make the top 10, a visual and mental souvenir. We validate ourselves with the success of these singers, many of whom will never sing in venues this large again while a select few will use this as a springboard for bigger and better things.
From that standpoint, the concert was a rousing success, highlighting the depth and breadth of talent this year. Sure, the TV show itself is getting gray around the edges (like me), but there are a few solid reasons the show sold out: David Cook and David Archuleta (with a few Jason Castro fans thrown in for good measure.)
The staging was simple, the backing band solid, the opening host Corey aggravating to the nth degree. (Yes, he’s the type of host who had to exhort people to stand up, clap and do the hokey pokey.) And adding a level of corporate surrealism, big Pop Tarts characters walked around. The crowd was your usual blend of families with kids and gobs of middle-aged women.
Let’s run down the top 10. In fact, the show itself for the first time celebrates the countdown on the big screens behind the singers.
Chikezie (below) is facile on stage, with the chops to handle both slow and fast songs. He lacks a certain something that would make him a big star. I can’t quite figure out why but he isn’t Ruben Studdard.
(PHOTO CREDITS: Rodney Ho)
What can I say about Ramiele without being mean? Well, there is only one point on stage where the audience can touch the contestants stage right. When Chikezie, Michael, the two Davids et. al. went over people stood up, cheered, reached for them, took pictures. When Ramiele came over? Nothing. They just sat there. Ouch. She was so robotic during her “I Want You Back,” I watched the backup singers, who were given their one chance to show off their dance moves.
Michael Johns got a great reception from his hometown crowd. (In fact, he had a separate meet and greet afterwards for more than 100 people. I’m going to post a blog entry about that Tuesday.) He sounded great, looked comfortable and even introduced “Dream On” as “the song that got me kicked off ‘American Idol.’ ” But alas, he still likes the song too much to care.
Kristy Lee Cook feels very calculated, very rehearsed but that sheen of professionalism got her through her three songs, including (of course) Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” She, like most of the other women, went all sparkly, probably because it can be seen in the back of the arena.
Carly Smithson, without the pressure of the judges or the weight of her past, let loose with Evanescence, Heart and Cyndi Lauper. When she’s more comfortable, we feel more comfortable. And she pulled off this dress below far better than 99% of the population. She can still scrunch her face up impressively when she sings passionately.
Brooke White is a joyous presence on stage, even when she partly tripped getting up from the piano. As the second coming of Carly Simon, she even had ’70s-style wavy hair.
During the U2 “Pride” group sing, I caught the two former Atlantans together on stage here. They should definitely do some duets at some point:
After the break, Jason Castro came on with a lovely rendition of “Over the Rainbow,” followed by his emotive take on Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” that we missed on “Idol” because they couldn’t get full clearance. Castro noted he was really nervous doing it in Hollywood but now has more confidence or something like that. The dreadheads were out in force. Somebody in line sight of me kept waving a big “No. 1” foam finger with dreads on it.
I still have a hard time finding a real identity behind the polished and professional Syesha Mercado but she is amazingly good at imitating the likes of Alicia Keys and Rihanna. And I managed to get the best photo of the night despite how far away I was from the stage (about 30 rows back on the side).
David Archuleta received screams almost as loud as those I heard for the Jonas Brothers a few months back. He sounded amazingly good as always and acted as if he’d never heard such feedback before. I don’t even think it’s an act. It’s just Archie. And he has this nervous tick of saying “hah!” every time he paused between thoughts.
The winner David Cook came on finessing both “Billie Jean” and “Hello” into grunge-like Cook masterpieces just like on the show. And he managed to make both his coronation song “Time of My Life” and the execrable Aerosmith song “And I Don’t Want To Miss a Thing” palatable. He also brought out a video camera and taped the crowd, a sweet souvenir. He still comes across as a less arrogant, more supple Daughtry and that’s why he deserved to be the winner. Folks closer up said he does like to wear a lot of eye liner along the lines of Dava Navarro:
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8/18: Idols Live meet and greet at Gwinnett Arena, new Daughtry video
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Larry King wanted to tape an interview with the 10 Idols so CNN ended up taping it today at Gwinnett Arena. That kind of threw off the standard Q&A interview portion but I got to take some shots of them during the interview below and got to finally meet the two former Atlantans Carly Smithson and Michael Johns. The “Larry King Live” is set to air Friday.
I got a few more tidbits from Michael Johns about this upcoming post tour plans. He will be working with Andrew Farriss from INXS in October on a song. He’s also hoping to attend the Elton John celeb-am tennis match in a few months. He also expects to move back to Atlanta next year. He’s working with the same people as Elliott Yamin to get his album out. He also gave a shout out to www.michaeljohnsonline.com for being such a great fan site.
He described the umbrella bit they did last night at Charlotte, which is already online. Michael, Syesha and I watched it on this computer:
Johns said by pure coincidence, he had heard Turner Classic Movies had paid homage to Gene Kelly of “Singing in the Rain” fame that same day.
As I was putting these pictures up in the meet-and-greet area, Kristy Lee Cook came up and looked through them. Brooke came by, too. Sweet gal. And Michael hated his shot below, says he looks kind of weighty. I said he looked fine but what do I know?
ABOVE: Kristy Lee Cook with Michael Johns.
A side shot with Jason Castro, Kristy Lee Cook, Michael and Chikezie Eze.
Usually, the “Idols” get to meet and greet fans outside at around 2 p.m. but today, because of the “Larry King Live” shoot, they couldn’t do it, leaving disappointed fans to hang outside.
I got to meet Carly in person. She remembered that I knew Jennifer Ordonez, who wrote that WSJ piece about her. She has amazing blue eyes. She has no concrete plans post tour yet but she’ll be working an album of course.
Brooke White with Jason Casto.
My favorite shot: David Cook with a mischievous grin while David Archuleta does his grin.
Carly with Chikezie.
Jason with Kristy.
David Cook recently got this tattoo of an eye. Not sure why or what it means. I wasn’t listening carefully to his explanation during the taping.
My artsy shot of the day from the second floor over some sweatshirts set to go on sale soon.
Ah… yes. The fans!
Michael, Carly and Chikezie from the side.
Syesha and the two Davids cutting up. One random observation about Archuleta I got from Johns. Archuleta eats constantly, usually healthy stuff, but he eats a lot. I saw him grabbing a few corn dog bites from the MarquisJet NetJets food spread. Ah… the advantages of youth!
Here’s other “Idol” news:
-This from a press release I got from CNN:
CNN today announced that platinum-selling recording artists Daughtry have rerecorded “Feels Like the First Time,” originally made famous by Foreigner in 1977, as the theme song for the network’s League of First Time Voters initiative. The music video will premiere on Campbell Brown: Election Center on Monday, August 18, and will be available on CNN.com via video on-demand.
The single will appear on Daughtry Deluxe, the band’s upcoming deluxe version of its debut album, due out Tuesday, Sept. 9.
“We strongly believe that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, as long as you vote,” said Chris Daughtry, lead singer of the Grammy-nominated band. “Getting to rerecord a classic song like this was a real honor for us, and we hope it helps inspire people to vote.”
-Word is from SOHH.com that Fantasia is in town working on her third album with Rock City.
