Allen? He's good, but Lambert steals the 'American Idol' show
There was no way Kris Allen could top the glam flash and showmanship of Adam Lambert on stage at the Greensboro Coliseum on Sunday night. So Allen closed the concert with the same method he used to beat Lambert on “American Idol,” delivering a comparatively subdued yet soulful performance.
The American Idols Live Tour 2009 brought the 10 finalists to town, including Anoop Desai, a crowd favorite from Chapel Hill, who had a large hometown contingent cheering for him from behind a banner that read, “We Love You Anoop, The UNC Clefhangers and Senior Varsity Fans.”
Desai showed some of the broadest, stylistic range of the night, bringing vulnerability to a rendition of “Always On My Mind,” a Willie Nelson standard made famous by Elvis Presley in the early 1970s. Desai also swaggered through “My Prerogative,” the 1988 Bobby Brown hit covered in 2004 by Britney Spears.
As on America’s long-running TV talent show, the song selection meandered all over the musical map Sunday night, from the decades-old piano ballad “Georgia On My Mind” (bludgeoned to death by Matt Giraud in the night’s hammiest performance) to recent hits by Corrine Bailey Rae (Megan Joy adding a little Amy Winehouse oomph to “Put Your Records On”) and Beyoncé (Lil Rounds lifting the concert from its early doldrums with a brassy cover of “Single Ladies.”)
There were a couple of subtle surprises, including Lambert’s brief run through “Life on Mars” in a David Bowie medley, as well as the inevitable bombastic show closer, with all 10 singers emerging at the end for Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”
While Michael Sarver and Scott MacIntyre delivered fairly pedestrian sets, Danny Gokey and another crowd favorite, Allison Iraheta, gave Lambert a run for his money with dynamic, high-energy performances. A concert can’t match the drama of waiting to see who will get eliminated on an episode of “American Idol,” so the show’s producers built tension by starting the concert with the lowest-rated performers and offering video-screen teasers of this season’s biggest stars, Lambert and Allen, who closed the show.
Multiartist concerts can be painfully slow affairs, with technical glitches and endless waits between acts. But the same band backed all 10 performers, eliminating the need for any set changes, and the concert was run with the efficiency of German mass transit, one singer seamlessly following another in a two-and-a-half-hour concert interrupted only by one 20-minute intermission.
Some singers emerged from smokescreens at the back of the stage –– most notably Lambert, strutting out to the opening riff of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” –– while others rose from beneath the stage, some playing grand pianos, others strumming acoustic guitars.
The coliseum appeared to be about half-filled with dedicated Idol fans, ranging from elementary-school-age children to seniors, many waving multi-colored glow sticks and shrieking for their favorite singers.
Allen, dressed in a modest Western shirt and jeans, delivered fine if unspectacular renditions of songs he made his signatures on the TV show, including Bill Withers’ 1971 hit “Ain’t No Sunshine” and Kanye West’s “Heartless” from 2008. He went from grand piano to electric and acoustic guitar over the course of his set, closing with a crowd singalong of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” before the rest of the singers crowded the stage for the Journey finale.
But Lambert provided the real capper to the concert. He was dressed like a cross between Mad Max and “Purple Rain”–era Prince, and applied his remarkable vocal range to a set heavy on classic rock. In addition to the Zeppelin and Bowie covers, Lambert also offered a haunting cover of “Mad World” from the “Donnie Darko” soundtrack.
Allen showed enough range and talent to illustrate how he won “American Idol,” but Sunday night’s concert positioned Lambert as the bigger potential breakout star.
source: http://www.news-record.com/
The American Idols Live Tour 2009 brought the 10 finalists to town, including Anoop Desai, a crowd favorite from Chapel Hill, who had a large hometown contingent cheering for him from behind a banner that read, “We Love You Anoop, The UNC Clefhangers and Senior Varsity Fans.”
Desai showed some of the broadest, stylistic range of the night, bringing vulnerability to a rendition of “Always On My Mind,” a Willie Nelson standard made famous by Elvis Presley in the early 1970s. Desai also swaggered through “My Prerogative,” the 1988 Bobby Brown hit covered in 2004 by Britney Spears.
As on America’s long-running TV talent show, the song selection meandered all over the musical map Sunday night, from the decades-old piano ballad “Georgia On My Mind” (bludgeoned to death by Matt Giraud in the night’s hammiest performance) to recent hits by Corrine Bailey Rae (Megan Joy adding a little Amy Winehouse oomph to “Put Your Records On”) and Beyoncé (Lil Rounds lifting the concert from its early doldrums with a brassy cover of “Single Ladies.”)
There were a couple of subtle surprises, including Lambert’s brief run through “Life on Mars” in a David Bowie medley, as well as the inevitable bombastic show closer, with all 10 singers emerging at the end for Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”
While Michael Sarver and Scott MacIntyre delivered fairly pedestrian sets, Danny Gokey and another crowd favorite, Allison Iraheta, gave Lambert a run for his money with dynamic, high-energy performances. A concert can’t match the drama of waiting to see who will get eliminated on an episode of “American Idol,” so the show’s producers built tension by starting the concert with the lowest-rated performers and offering video-screen teasers of this season’s biggest stars, Lambert and Allen, who closed the show.
Multiartist concerts can be painfully slow affairs, with technical glitches and endless waits between acts. But the same band backed all 10 performers, eliminating the need for any set changes, and the concert was run with the efficiency of German mass transit, one singer seamlessly following another in a two-and-a-half-hour concert interrupted only by one 20-minute intermission.
Some singers emerged from smokescreens at the back of the stage –– most notably Lambert, strutting out to the opening riff of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” –– while others rose from beneath the stage, some playing grand pianos, others strumming acoustic guitars.
The coliseum appeared to be about half-filled with dedicated Idol fans, ranging from elementary-school-age children to seniors, many waving multi-colored glow sticks and shrieking for their favorite singers.
Allen, dressed in a modest Western shirt and jeans, delivered fine if unspectacular renditions of songs he made his signatures on the TV show, including Bill Withers’ 1971 hit “Ain’t No Sunshine” and Kanye West’s “Heartless” from 2008. He went from grand piano to electric and acoustic guitar over the course of his set, closing with a crowd singalong of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” before the rest of the singers crowded the stage for the Journey finale.
But Lambert provided the real capper to the concert. He was dressed like a cross between Mad Max and “Purple Rain”–era Prince, and applied his remarkable vocal range to a set heavy on classic rock. In addition to the Zeppelin and Bowie covers, Lambert also offered a haunting cover of “Mad World” from the “Donnie Darko” soundtrack.
Allen showed enough range and talent to illustrate how he won “American Idol,” but Sunday night’s concert positioned Lambert as the bigger potential breakout star.
source: http://www.news-record.com/
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