OH MY GOD!! Still recovering from the hiiiiighhh!!
It's moments like this when I wish I'm in America so that I can catch him in concert again and again and again and again...
I am experiencing a really HUGE post-concert depression syndrome - the dreaded feeling of emptiness after such a high.
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100 minutes of pure showmanship. What I remember most about him is his comedic antics on stage and just laughing a lot throughout the show; in general, just a cute funny dorky guy, singing old classics (and a few of his own songs).
Michael started with "Cry Me A River" – the dramatic start of the music works really well for a concert and I now understand what he meant when he said that he makes music with concert in mind.
White curtain covered the stage and when the dramatic music started, we could only see the silhouette of a man behind the curtains holding on to the mic stand. Then when the singing began, the curtains open to reveal the man himself singing with his band of 13 wind instrument players, 2 guitarists, a drummer and a pianist. Then, at the end of this first song of the night, instead of taking the audience slowly and building up the momentum of the concert, Mr Buble grabbed us by the neck, dragged us into his world, with an explosion of sparks that rained down in front of the stage!!
That set the tone to the whole concert – Party!
Then, what followed was “All of Me”.
Sometime after these songs he read out a poster by a fan in the crowd and called her forward to sign her poster which prompted other fans to rush over to him to get his signature too. He obliged for awhile and then returned to stage to sing before pointing to the crowd below and saying “I want 5 dollars for every signature I just did!”
Michael was completely comfortable and relaxed on stage and continually cracking one-liners – At This Moment ("It’s by this group Billy and The Beaters, and I’d like to do a medley of their hit") and Mack the Knife ("It’s a beautiful, beautiful old standard about a man who murders innocent people" and pretended slashing his neck at the end of the song). He also thrilled the crowd with his antics on stage, which was tilted slightly, thus allowing him to slide down and across it.
But the crowd really rallied behind him with a huge roar, when he started with “Everything”,
Actually, from the super high-definition screen on my side of the stadium, I find that he looks worn down and tired. He was of course sweating profusely, since he was constantly on the move, walking, twisting, sliding, sometimes jumping, interacting with his band and the crowd, and besides, excessive sweating is also very much expected from artists from the West since our weather’s really humid.
Anyway, his introduction to his band was hilarious. While seated on stage, he gave rather fanciful narration of each member with pictures on his swanky 5 panel display screen backdrop. At one point, he said “You all know that I don’t have favourites but please welcome … (can’t remember his name) … from CANADA!!”, and when the guy stood up, Michael looked at him proudly and softly sang the national anthem of Canada. Hilarious!!
But the best part of the band introduction was when Michael fooled us all using phrases like “He has made his way” and “I know his parents are in the crowd, your very own, please welcome so-and-so”, making us believe that this band member was really from Malaysia. His band member played along and gestured with his hands to us to cheer louder when he stood up. We roared! Michael laughed and blurted out “He’s actually from Texas”. Though feeling rather insulted, we laughed with him and he added “You know, what touched me was how welcomed you made him feel when you learnt he’s from here.” Oh my God, super-funny!
Then it was “I’ve Got The World On A String”, “Crazy Love” and Georgia On My Mind”.
During the break, Michael sat at the piano with the musical director, Alan Chang, who he has worked closely since the beginning of his career. Michael said he too can be cool singing songs like his and then broke into Disney’s Aladdin animated movie song “I can show you the world, shining shimmering splendid,…” swaying side-to-side and looking goofy. And then he said that backstage when he does voice warm-up with Alan, he sings some songs and then he breaks into “Don’t stop believing, Hold on to that Feeling, Streetlights, People…!” “People think that I’m like Sinatra, but when I was a kid, what I really wanted is to be Michael Jackson.” Then, stood up and burst into a hysterical performance of Billie Jean, singing in falsetto and dancing – quite badly – in classic Jackson fashion holding his crouch, even using the tilted stage to slide down in a ‘moonwalk’. He even had the crowd on their feet during his version of The Beatles’ “Twist And Shout” getting everyone on the their feet.
Michael then left the main stage walked from stage right to a smaller makeshift one at the other end of the stadium, while singing “All I Do Is Dream of You” and getting mugged by the audience on the floor. Reaching the makeshift stage, he turned to the people on floor saying “For you who paid the expensive tickets, you’ve been screwed! These are MY people!” to the roaring delight of those on the tiers. There, he led the stadium in a sing-along of “Home”. He made his way back to the front with “Save the Last Dance”.
"My final song of the night," he said, "is a song I wrote to give hope to single people." He then led everyone in another sing-along of the bouncy hit “Haven’t Met You Yet”, before leaving the stage. I didn’t find the appeal of this song before when hearing the recorded version, but after the concert, it is quite a fun song! I get it now.
With the crowd’s call of encore, which to me seems to be the standard modus operandi of a concert, he came back singing “Feeling Good” followed by “Me and Mrs Jones” with confetti rained into the audience below. He then took a moment to thank everyone for coming and said he’ll come back a million times if we’ll have him. “But if I’m coming back, we’ve got to make a deal, ok. Either I come back as Beyonce or we’ve got to get come air-conditioning in this place! What with the spotlight on me; I’m sweating through my suit and that sucks!” He wasn’t kidding. He really was sweating through his suit. You can actually see the sweat stains on the back of his suit. It was pretty warm in the stadium, actually, even for me.
He finally ended with “Song For You”, which he said was dedicated to his fans, singing the final verse a cappella and without a microphone, to a hushed stadium, showcasing the power of his voice. His voice reached every nook and corner of the stadium. It was a nice personal touch and I must say kind of audacious for a singer to do that since concerts in general strains the throat pretty badly but doing that, woah, brave!
This was one concert experience to remember, without a doubt. He sure is a tough act for other artistes to follow.
