@joshgroban at MSG 11/18/18

Well, I’ve certainly taken my sweet time getting this blog out.  The concert was more than a week ago.  I guess Josh is not as high priority to me as he used to be.  Like right now I'm having a hard time trying to get myself to edit this properly, because I'm watching a documentary about Queen, because I saw "Bohemian Rhapsody" recently. There was a time when I would have had the blog up the next day after the concert -- even if I had to stay up all night. 

But better late than never, I suppose.  As usual, I'll likely edit it later.

The concert started early. That was surprising. I thought I had at least ten minutes before the show would start, so I went to the restroom. When I came back Idina was already singing.

I wonder if that was planned, or if she was so excited she just jumped the gun. In retrospect, given that it was Sunday night and a lot of people, including me, had to go to work on the morning, I wish they had started at seven.

People started walking out after Qui, during Josh’s set, presumably because they had to work the next day.  I stayed until the end, but it was hard because I had a 7:30 am call time the next morning and two hours commute each way.  I didn’t get much sleep.  People were fleeing the arena before Josh got offstage after the encore.  I don’t think that was because the concert was bad.  I think it was because they had to work.

Idina

Idina cut a striking figure in a very sparkly jumpsuit. Even though I was pretty high up, there was no missing her, brightly reflecting the stage lighting. The outfit seemed to make her look taller. I quickly googled her height. The search revealed her to be a solidly average 5'4". I was surprised. I thought she must be a giant.

I was far enough up not to be able to see too clearly, but also too far forward to see the screens overhead.  I tried to crain my neck to see them, but still couldn’t see her face clearly.

 There was an accordion pleated curtain behind her on stage where they were projecting her image. It was strangely distorted by the folds of the curtain. I wished I had brought binoculars.

Idina was excited to perform at MSG. She had been fantasizing about it for a long time. She told us that she also fantasized that we would be charting her name, so some people did. Of course, if she had really hoped for spontaneous chanting it might have helped not to start early.

She also said she wanted to jump into a mosh pit, but of course there was none.

She had a rock-like approach to music, though I think the sparkly jumpsuit puts her in the pop category, right?  I don’t really understand these categories very well. I don’t like them that much, in general.

Idina sings very loudly. She has a powerful voice. The amplification was turned up too high as well. I wore ear plugs for most of her performance.

Idina is a charismatic performer with good vocal technique. She's very experienced and has had some big hits, like "Defying Gravity" and "Let it Go-to" which she sang. She moves well. She looked fabulous in her jumpsuit...

And, yet, I've unfortunately never liked her voice. I don't understand why Josh likes it. Of course, he doesn't like his own voice.

I saw their Awake duet on YouTube. I didn't like her voice then either. I did listen to some other YouTube videos of her before the concert and found some where I did like the sound, and I certainly like her hits, as recorded, so I was hoping maybe I would like her in person, but, unfortunately, no.

I even tweeted Josh when he announced that she was touring with him that I wasn't pleased, not that that would have swayed him. Obviously, he had already committed and he likes her voice.

But my friends on Bad Grobanites also didn't like her voice, nor did the person sitting next to me at MSG. I do have one friend who likes her voice, but that person is not a hard core Grobanite.

There is a reason why she was cast as a witch. Broadway does not only cast for beautiful voices. They cast for stage presence, for acting ability, for expressiveness. She certainly has all those things.

Josh

In any case, it is said that the grass is always greener on the other side. I suppose that's true of Josh as well. He started out very loud, as if to match Idina. I didn't write down the set list at the time, but I think he started with "Bigger Than You."

I took the ear plugs out a few times when idina was performing, but sadly put them back in. I was even sadder to have to put them in when Josh was singing. Does he really think that people turn to his music to have their ears blasted out?

It wasn't just me. The person next to me said she wished she had ear plugs. A friend of mine who saw the concert in Philadelphia said the same.

At some level, he wants to be that loud rock singer. But, Josh, why not just be you?

Fortunately, some time during the evening, the volume did go down a bit so I was able to listen to the later part of the concert without earplugs.

I was interested to watch our usher listening to Josh. You could see that he was really drawn into the music. He was very focused on the performance. I talked to him afterwards. He said he hadn't seen Josh before, he thought Josh was good, and that it was nice to hear some more laid back music, because the crowds at the other shows tended to get drunk and rowdy.

On the whole, I thought Josh did well. His technique only improves with time, especially since he apparently changed voice coaches. Curiously, he went nasal on the older songs, Oceano and Alla Luce, as if they somehow took him back into some old pattern.

I was sad that he didn't play drums or accordion, but he did play piano, across the arena on a smaller stage. During the first song over there, she's always a woman, I didn't figure out what had happened. I could see him on the screen, but not on the stage. Then I figured it out. He's done this before. I felt dumb not to figure it out right away.

I did get to see him run back, which was nice. He shook several hands along the way. It was rumored that on this tour he didn't do his usual appearances at the buses for autographs. This was allegedly because he has received so many death threats. It's so sad how celebrities attract whackos and no one seems to be able to do anything about it. Of course, I've encountered several of them in Josh's twitter following.

He does, in principle, like hanging around with fans, I think, if they don't grope him or grab him, but, obviously, death threats are another matter. So, at least with this setup, he gets to shake a few hands

The Awake DVD showed him running back and forth for his entire show. I recall him saying, when he was younger, that he liked to practice singing while running on a treadmill. Now the running is much curtailed, but he got to do a little of it. I wonder if that's connected with him getting older. Also, he said in one interview that he's had knee surgery.

It's hard to think of young Josh getting older, but, really, we're around the twentieth anniversary of David Foster discovering him. Hard to wrap my mind around that.

I don't so much want him to play drums because of his drumming skills, but because he's fun to watch when he plays. He gets so into it. You don't get to where Josh is without having that X Factor, and that means that he's fun to watch. Other drummers might have more skill, but they're not him.

Another notable omission was "Symphony." That was the first single Josh released on this latest album. It also seemed to be the most personal, about his struggles with balancing his career, which involves a lot of travel, and his love life. I liked that song. But maybe it was too fresh for him. I suspected that was why he wouldn't sing "Love Only Knows" from the "Illuminations" album: a song that obviously grew out of a painful situation that perhaps he didn't feel comfortable singing in front of an audience.

I do hope that Josh does eventually write a symphony. I feel he's got it in him, the talent, the skill, and the musical maturity. I feel he would write a really interesting piece. Symphonies aren't hit songs, I don't think. I don't know if anyone ever got rich writing a symphony. It's about making a musical statement. I hope he'll do it.

I was afraid that the "Bridges" album signaled a change in Josh, away from his tendency towards experimental, fusion music into conventional pop. But, in concert, it turned out ok. I heard a lot of exotic sounds, the sort I normally expect from Josh, a lot of musical complexity. That was a relief to me. He hasn't sold out.

Jennifer Nettles visited. I gather she wasn't at the other concerts. When they said there would be a special guest, I was hoping for Lucia, who I saw performing in NYC the week before, but, no. That's just over, I guess. I miss Ruslan as well, and that Asian drummer who calls himself "Tao of Sound."

Jennifer sings quite low. Josh tends to sing high a lot. I find it unfortunate that we seem to admire men who sing high and women who sing low, ironically as if we want our singers to be slightly trans or something. Unfortunately, the result is that when Josh and Jennifer sing together it's sometimes hard to tell who is singing.

Of course, they sang "99 Years," the duet they sang on the album. That's a nice peppy song, but, really, Josh, outside of the Book of Genesis, I don't think couples live long enough to be married 99 years. Perhaps it would be better to be satisfied with our natural lifetime.

Mark Stephens has cut his hair. That made me a bit sad also. I don't know if that was what made him look older or whether he just really has aged a lot. Uncomfortable reminder of my own mortality

There was something odd about the screen behind Josh.  While Idina had a curtain that broke up the projected image of her rather chaotically, Josh had a flat screen.  However, the projected image was partially blocked at the top by the stage lighting, which meant that one often couldn’t see his face on the screen, at least from the nose bleed seats where I was sitting. I could see his chest and shoulders just fine.  If they had projected him just a bit lower I could have seen his face more often.

Josh wore a velvet jacket.  I think this was the only time he did that on this tour.  I gather that the performance was being recorded for a possible DVD. I could see a robot arm moving a camera around the stage during much of the performance.  Apparently, he dressed up for that – though a velvet jumpsuit seems out of character for him, to me.  Idina changed from her sparkling jumpsuit to a velvet jumpsuit during their duets so that they would be coordinated – albeit in different colors.  Josh’s jacket was dark blue, while Idina’s jumpsuit was beige.  Actually, I couldn’t tell from my vantage point whether Josh’s jacket was velvet or satin.  It was Idina who pointed out that it was velvet.  I wonder about depicting Josh for posterity in this foppish jacket, when he much prefers to dress casually.

At one point, Josh had people turn on their cell phone lights around the arena.  That’s a very pretty effect, but when I really looked at the distance between the lights it seemed that most people didn’t comply.  I wonder why.  Batteries low? Don’t know how to turn on their cell phone flashlight? Don’t like to be ordered around from state?  It left me wondering what MSG would have looked like if in fact every one had turned on their cell  phone light.

Josh had to ask people in front to sit down at one point, because he feared that view of those in back would be obscured. He mentioned that there was no mosh pit also. Perhaps he really needs one.  Some fans do want to stand during the performance.

I tried to write down all the songs afterwards, with some help from other fans.  This isn’t in order, but I think this was the list of songs Josh sang or played

Songs

Bigger than us

Musica del Corazon

Bring him home

To where you are

You raise me up

Bridge over troubled water

Qui

Alla luce

pure imagination

lullaby (with Idina)

Falling slowly (with Idina)

oceano

Granted

River

99 years

Won't look back

you are loved

She's always a woman to me

Wandering kind

99 years (with Jennifer)

Here are some tweet images that I sent out during and after the concert:

This was the next day.  Idina made a remark that she should be excused for swearing because she's 47, married twice, and gave birth to a child.  She suggested that parents just cover their kids' ears.  I disagree

This was before the concert.  There was a time when I knew that Josh was reading my tweets to him, so I still sometimes write to him as if he were reading.  You never know.  He might.