@adamlambert @foxwoods #foxstar

I went to hear Adam Lambert at the grand theater at Foxwoods. This was the set list.

Stranger you are

Super power

No trespassing

Another one bites the dust

Evil in the night

Ready to run

Comin’ in hot

New eyes

Overglow

After hours

(They brought out a stool so that he could sit while performing three songs)

Feel something

Closer to you

Believe

(Then he got back on his feet)

What do you want from me

For your entertainment

If I had you

Lover boy

Lay me down in darkness

Ghost Town

Encore

Please come home for Christmas

This was a very peppy and professional concert. The piece was brisk, and all other performers seem to get flawless performance. There was a four piece band and to back up singers in addition to Adam. Unlike some of his earlier tours, there were no back up dancers. I sort of missed that.

I’m not sure if he sang all the verses to some of the songs. They seemed to go by very quickly. The whole concert was an hour and 15 minutes, which is fairly short. 

What a contrast with the Dimash concert that I heard earlier. Bad concert was three hours, and Dimash didn’t want to leave the stage.

One of the fans talked to me about the difference between a concert and a show. The Dimash concert was clearly a show. There was music, but there were also lots of images and lights and fireworks and steam jets, three groups of dancers, two guest soloists, and an island out in the arena where they played the dombra.

What Adam did tonight was more of a concert. There were lights flashing around and bit of something on the back screen, but basically it was a music concert.

I sort of expected the concert to be loud. And it was pretty loud. I did wear earplugs a lot of the time.

What I’m really grateful for is that, though they did shine lights at the audience, these lights did not hurt my eyes unlike in most of the concerts I’ve seen recently. If you read back through this blog you’ll see that a lot of artists have been hurting my eyes recently: Josh Groban, Chris Isaak, Home Free, Dimash, even to some extent Greyson Chance. The only two concerts I’ve been to recently where they shown lights on the audience, but chose dimmer lights that wouldn’t hurt our eyes, were Queen and this solo one with Adam Lambert. Thank you, Adam!

It was interesting that some of the songs were quieter, particularly the songs from the velvet album seem to be quieter. I was surprised that Ghost Town was quieter. I hadn’t realized that was a quiet song

Also surprising was that it appeared, from the audience reaction, that the favorite song of the concert was “Believe.” This is surprising, because Adam has billed himself as a loud rock performer, and presumably his fans like that, and yet “Believe” is not a rock song the way he sings it. It might arguably have been rock or pop the way Cher sang it, but the way Adam sings    it is basically adult contemporary. The applause for that song went on for a long time.

Also surprising was that he ended the concert with “Please Come Home for Christmas.“ He’s Jewish. He put out a Christmas song that seems to be directed to Javi, who recently left. 

Adam came across very much of a sort of performer who would be performing in a casino, which this was. He showed tremendous poise and professional publish. The music went very smoothly. I didn’t hear any errors or anything. There weren’t any awkward silences.

Yet, recently, I downloaded the videos for “Glam Nation,” A DVD from Adam’s first tour. The performance on that DVD, is characterized by a kind of gleeful exuberance that just wasn’t there tonight. He certainly performed songs with energy and often with a smile, but there just weren’t any giggles or sense of excitement that he showed back at the beginning.

Frankly, I’m a bit worried about him.

I’m also jealous that the people next to me got their tickets for $20 on stub hub, while I paid $80. I was up in the nosebleed seats.

***

Addendum: Just a few words about the venue, Foxwoods, because I've never been there.  

First, I was confused, because I've been to Mohegan Sun before and this was so nearby, but it turns out they are different places.  So I found this helpful Quora post on this topic What-is-are-the-differences-between-Foxwoods-and-Mohegan-Sun

Second, I want to commend this venue for having a huge parking garage that is free. A lot of venues squeeze customers for parking, and they certainly could, here, because it's not clear where else you would park, if you're from out of town. Yet, these people don't.  I'm grateful for that.

Third, it turns out that there is a food court there that isn't a total ripoff.  I brought my own food, which I ate in the car, because I wasn't sure what they would have, but that likely wasn't necessary.   Again, there are a lot of venues that really squeeze customers for food, but these people don't .  Next time I'll know, and I will try to eat at the venue, if I go there again.

Now I don't know if this was the venue or whether it was Adam's audio people, but there was an audio problem in one of the earlier songs.  The backing singers were too loud, and you couldn't hear Adam's melisma clearly.  I'm not sure which song that was.  However, the issue was corrected and it did not recur, which is really good. I've seen venues where the problems persist unless you go to an usher and make a big stink.  Again, I am really impressed that the issue was quickly corrected and did not recur.

Also, generally, the ushers were really friendly and  helpful.

Link to concert clip where background vocals were too loud

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6IQNyuhvFe/?igshid=ifobzzytr0o8

******

I'm interested, watching the concert videos from Worcester, Foxwoods, and NYC, that he wore suits in the first two venues, which were, for him, rather conservative. Then, when he got to NYC, he was a bit wilder.  Perhaps he does adjust based on what he thinks the audience is going to be.

I would have liked to go in NYC, because I live closer to there than to Foxwoods, but it was sold out on ticketmaster.  I gather there were tix going for $200 on stubhub -- probably illegal.  I'll have to look on stubhub next time.

Here he is in NYC

Love my Syro silver heels! shirt and trouser set by @SiesMarjan pic.twitter.com/OZozVqRxzc

— ADAM LAMBERT (@adamlambert) December 17, 2019

****

Well, this is interesting. He seems to have been much higher energy in NYC. 

Please come home for Christmas in Mashantucket

Please come home for Christmas in NYC

I note that his friend Terrence Spencer was in the audience in NYC.  Also the venue in NYC was sold out, which affects audience energy, while the Grand Theater at Foxwoods  had a lot of empty seats -- but of course the Grand Theater is *much* larger and quite hard to get to.  Or, maybe, his wilder outfit in NYC made him happier?

On having a meet and greet with Adam -- what was going on in my head -- a core dump

I woke up in the middle of the night with insomnia and wrote this blog. I may delete it.  It's about what was going on in my head after meeting my new pop hero. It's not adulation.  If you read my blog, you'll see that I don't necessarily do that, even when I'm obsessed with a performer.

****

Of course I knew he liked make up. He often said so. He even said that his last job before he got into show business was working at the cosmetics counter at Nordstrom‘s, but…

I wasn’t prepared. The make up on his face was caked so thick. It reminded me of my friend in high school who had a strawberry mark on her face. I guess he knew he was going to be photographed frequently, so he wanted to look good?

But then my inner voices start saying things like: Is he trying to conceal some early wrinkles, because of age? Does he have circles under his eyes? Is he nervous about the concert? Is he miserable because Javi left?

He was much thinner than I expected. My inner voice asks: Is he starving himself? Does he have AIDS?

He looked like he was wearing a mask. It looked like him, for sure, but also not. Most nights I fall asleep fantasizing about him. Tonight I can’t.

I wasn’t as articulate as I would’ve liked to have been. He told me he liked my velvet. I had worn velvet to meet him. I didn’t say thank you. I did remember to say it was nice to meet him.

I mean I expected the eye make up. He’s always had a lot of eye make up.

It could’ve been Botox. His face looks kind of rigid. I mean you don’t have a lot of wrinkles at 37 normally. Nevertheless, you might have a few on your forehead. And, he has also smoked. I don’t know how much. I saw a picture of him smoking that wasn’t that old. I hope he’s not damaging his voice. Smoking does cause wrinkles around the eyes. That might scare him. He’s very appearance oriented.

Brian and Roger succeed in performing over 70. I wonder what they do with their faces. They look pretty good for over 70. They don’t hide their gray hair though. Would they start rejecting him if he looked older? Does he worry about that? Is the front man supposed to look young? It’s hard to imagine them discriminating on the basis of age. But they could. He could be afraid of that.

Or maybe he just thinks the fans expect him not to age. Would fans reject him if he looks older? They might. People always love watching very young people sing.

But I can’t fantasize about him tonight. There’s something about that face. I always have been into the natural look. I know that I’m different from him in that respect. I’ve never really liked make up. And perhaps this was more than make up. Perhaps it was Botox also. I have the feeling something was wrong. 

Pretty soon it’s going to be that horrible plastic surgery stuff. I saw a picture of Barry Manilow. What a nightmare! Should I unhitch my  imagination from this wagon? Am I guilty of age discrimination?

I said I didn’t want to be a Grobanite anymore. I find my Tourette’s voice still calling out that I love Josh, though. At least Josh isn’t doing something like that to his face. At least I don’t think so.

#glambert

.@kudaibergenov.dimash @barclayscenter 191210 #arnau_envoy

He said that he first began dreaming of performing in New York City in front of a large arena, singing a particular Kazakh folk song, when he was a small child. He was visibly stunned that his dream came true. He got to sing the very song that he dreamed of in front of a nearly sold out audience at the Barclays Center. It was a touching moment.

It was kind of incredible for me too. To me, Kazakhstan seems like such a very far away place, almost unimaginable. I had seen it on the map. It never occurred to me that people there sang songs, especially not rock songs, especially not with high tech sound and light shows.

And, yet, through the miracle of YouTube, I learned about this performer, found him on Instagram, and found out that he was coming to the United States to give a concert. The Internet is a phenomenal thing.

I had previously gone to that same arena a few weeks before to see Igor Krutoy. That also seemed to me like a miracle. Here was this famous Russian composer, performing with famous Russian singers, although few Americans would ever have heard of any of them. Yet the arena was nearly sold out, with little or no publicity.

At the Dimash show, they gave me a flyer, with information about four additional shows coming up within the next two months that were oriented around Russian culture. That astounded me. I had no idea that there was such an active Russian cultural life in Brooklyn.

Dimash amply demonstrated the fabulous singing skills that we've seen on YouTube. There was the rich operatic baritone and tenor, the whistle tones, incredibly high mix/belt, and the emotional, soft whispered pop tones. There was never a moment where he wasn't fully committed to the performance, with every muscle in his body. Sometimes, as he was singing a rock song, he use that opera voice. It was very beautiful. You don't think of rock singers singing with an operatic tone. Actually, it worked very well, especially because he was running around the stage, and not just standing planted and being melodramatic, unlike regular opera singers.

There is a also a remarkable and unique liquidity to his tone, so perfectly placed in the mouth.  I know I could listen forever -- well, except perhaps not all at once.

He demonstrated incredible energy. The show was almost 3 hours long. At the end of the show he was still running around, jumping up and down, taking a swing through the mosh pit. He took a second trip to the mosh pit. You could tell he didn't want to leave that stage.  A lot of us were tired. It was after 10. He wasn't tired. His voice didn't sound tired either. Hopefully, this won't be his last chance to perform in the United States in a large arena. It shouldn't be. He's an incredible singer.

There was a logistical thing that they did that was interesting to me. When Dimash was doing the dombra interlude, he went to an island, away form the main stage.  When I've been to Josh Groban concerts, he also has an island.  However, when Josh goes to the island, he makes the people mad who are sitting in the high priced seats near the main stage, because suddenly they're not front row any more.  Here, it appeared that everyone on the floor was standing, so, when Dimash changed locations, they just walked over to the other place.  Part of me wished I was down there standing on the floor, but since the concert went on for almost 3 hours, it was probably just as well that I wasn't.

The sound and light show was impressive, but also bad in some ways. In several parts of the rock numbers, the band was so loud that you couldn't hear Dimash. The sound mix was bad.  I used ear plugs sometimes, when it was loud.  They had the advantage, also, of filtering out some of the static in the amplification, so that I could hear Dimash's voice better with them in than with them out.  There were quieter moments where I didn't use them.

They also engaged in a practice which I detest, which is to shine bright lights into the eyes of the audience. When you're sitting in a darkened arena, your eyes dark adapt. When they shine bright lights into your eyes, when your eyes are dark adapted, it's especially painful. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a class action lawsuit against the arenas and theaters that allow this. I can't imagine that it doesn't damage the retina.

In this case, it was especially frustrating, because there were dancers. The bright lights were frequently behind the dancers. If you tried to look at the dancers, you would be blinded. What is the point of having dancers if you can't look at them? Also, the view of the dancers was frequently blocked by fireworks and steam coming out of jets around the stage. They were really trying to go all out, but sometimes it was just too much. There was too much going on to see any of it.

Also, there were absolutely beautiful images being displayed on the screens behind the stage. Again, if you looked at them, you would be blinded by bright lights flashing randomly in your eyes. What is the point of having these beautiful displays on the screen, if people aren’t going to be able to look at them?

I've been at several concerts recently where they do this thing of shining bright lights in my eyes. I've learned to bring sunglasses. Unfortunately, it's often not enough. Only the Queen concert that I went to was tolerable in its use of lights, in the sense that they used dim, diffuse light, rather than bright lights.

This show began with a pre-show that was video material about tourism in Kazakhstan. The natural landscapes were very beautiful. The white couple, who was pictured traveling in Kazakhstan, spoke with a foreign accent, presumably played by Russians. Of course, people viewing this video will not be native speakers of English, so it likely won’t matter. 

If anyone involved in Kazakh [I notice that my dictation software spells this Cossack, not sure about the meaning of this] tourism is listening to this blog, I don't think I would ever travel so far. However, if I did go, I would much prefer to have a direct flight from United States, rather than having to transfer in Moscow. I once looked it up on Expedia.

Also, in the pre-show, there were videos about the many awards that Dimash has earned for his singing in Russia and Asia. It has been said that Michael Jackson was the first truly international performer. However, I feel Dimash is even more so. He's a great fan of Michael Jackson. He always has a little bit of Michael Jackson tribute in his concerts. At the end of the concert, he pulled a Michael Jackson, and threw his jacket into the audience.

There were several places in the show where there were breaks, with other performers. In some cases, it was an instrumental break. Also, he had that woman from Indonesia,who won his online contest. Then, curiously, at one point there were a group of what I initially thought were  African-Americans performing (tho I think now that they were possibly just Dimash's backup dancers performing with Jordan Arakelyan). That was interesting.  They were very good.

During those breaks, Dimash did costume changes. Costume changes were puzzling, because they weren't very distinctive. In each case, at least as far as I could see, he was wearing a black pants and a black jacket decorated with either white or sparkly patterns or letters. (looking on the video afterwards I see he wore a white suit at one time, but for some reason I didn't notice live) I've seen him use more colors in other concerts online.Nevertheless, a performer who's running around on stage a lot does have to do frequent costume changes, because he's going to get sweaty.

There seemed to be three sets of dancers. One set was backing up Dimash. The other set was the Astana [do I have that right?] ballet — a traditional group.  Another set backed up another singing group that came.

The group that was backing up Dimash was fairly casually dressed. Sometimes they did tumbling and flips. Other times they did regular dancing. I was a little disappointed by the dancers. I know that Russian dancers, and I assume most of these people were Russian, because they were white, can be absolutely excellent. These people looked somewhat chaotic, to the extent that I could look at them at all. 

The Kazakh ballet group were women wearing long dresses. I suppose this comes out of traditional Kazakh culture, which is Muslim. The long dresses have the disadvantage that you cannot see the dancers’ legs. On the other hand, it was sort of a relief. Many dancing costumes seem to me to be unnecessarily provocative — and the fabric here was much more graceful. These dancers also wore very high pointed gold hats.

The band was quite large, and there we're back up singers. I was never able to successfully count how many people were actually playing instruments. There was too much going on on stage, and too many people. Also, when Dimash was introducing them, it was a little confusing.

Dimash spoke most of the time in English. This was impressive, because I don't think he's been studying English very long. On the other hand, he tends to speak very quietly, even though he sings very loudly. And, he has still a strong accent, so it was sometimes hard to understand him. Also he often was struggling to find words.  Still it was far better than the Igor Krutoy concert, where virtually no one tried to speak English — the only exception being Dimash.

He sang in many languages. I think there were Chinese, Kazakh, Russian, Italian, French, and English. There might have been others, but I wouldn’t have recognized them. Of course, we don't really care what the words are, because we're just listening to his beautiful voice. However, I still think it would be nice if, if he comes back to the United States, if he would put some kind of captions on the screen with the words. This would be especially important in the case of the Kazakh song that was so special for him.

At one point, they had him run through fireworks falling from above, rather than from the jets around the stage.  I was thinking "Please, please don't let them set his hair on fire like they did to Michael Jackson in the Pepsi commercial." Fortunately, Dimash seemed to come through unscathed.

I noticed in this concert, and the Igor Krutoy concert, that there was a cameraman running around on stage full-time. This is a little distracting. It's especially frustrating, because it doesn't seem like a DVD ever comes out. If they're going to have a cameraman running around on stage, they should come out with a DVD.

Of course, we know that Dimash is fairly newly on tour. As a result, there has not been a full album of the songs he usually sings. This was unfortunate, because in many cases he wanted us to sing with him. There were some people who knew the words, but I sure didn't. I only heard some of the songs once or twice on YouTube. If there were an album I would've learned more words, maybe not all of them especially in foreign languages, but I would've been able to sing along better. He really wanted people to sing along.

I had thought I might buy some of the perfume. I was curious what it might smell like. Unfortunately the price was $95, $75 for the cologne. I wasn't *that* curious. Also, some fans organized a pre-concert dinner. I have sometimes gone to those, as a Grobanite, before Josh Groban concerts. The Grobanites tried to make sure that the dinners were reasonably priced. Here the dinner was over $100. I respectfully declined. Spending over $100 on a ticket is enough for me.  Maybe at some point I’ll get curious enough to spend $95 for the perfume, though.

Thinking back on this, they really pulled out all the stops in this concert: at least 6 piece band, backup singers, at least 2 groups of dancers, upscale light show, jets of fireworks and steam, a group of dombra players, two guest solo singers.  I am assuming that the reason they could do this was that the individual performers weren't paid very much --- or maybe the strong dollar made it cheap to pay them.  In any case, it was pretty astounding, all the stuff they put in. 

Here's a nice video of a long segment of this concert

#dimashkudaibergen #dimash #dimashkudaibergenov #dears #dimashdears #dimashfans #dimashinstagram #dimasharnau #dimashi #kudaibergenovdimash #kudaibergendimash #dimashconcert #dimash_arnau #dimashq #dimashkudaibergenov💚❤💜💙💛💗💗💗💓💓💓💕💕💕💖💖💖💞💞💞💫💫💫💫💫💫💫💫✨✨✨✨😘😘😘😚😚😚😚 #dimash_kudaibergen #dimash_onstage #arnau_envoy

#ДИМАШ #Нью-Йорк 

*** 

I"m looking at some other videos, and seeing that the people on the floor likely didn't get lights in their eyes.  I was on the side, but not high up, just about  18 rows from the floor.

Here's his SOS from the concert. This was the song that originally went viral out of China and brought him to my attention.  I notice that since he went to France his pronunciation of this song has improved dramatically.  I'm fluent in French so I notice.

*****

It turns out that those cameras on stage were for a live Qazaq TV show, which is now up on YouTube !!!

I see from this video that there were at least some non-white dancers, which I couldn't see from my seat

Also, this woman who I thought was African American is apparently Jordan Arakelyan, who is an Armenian, who relocated from Georgia (central asia, not the us state) to Kazakhstan, but she was wearing corn row braids and sounded like a lot of African American singers who I have heard and spoke English with an African American accent.  She apparently thought we knew who she was, but I sure never heard of her.  Maybe she was talking to the Qazaq TV audience.

@HomeFreeGuys @TownHallNYC 11/10/19

 Last night I wrote this really long blog about my experience listening to Greyson Chance at Sony Hall. I had mixed feelings about that performance. It wasn’t absolutely terrible, but I can’t say I enjoyed the  experience.

Tonight I went to see Home Free at the Town Hall. I guess I’ve often written blogs when where  I was irked, restless, dissatisfied.

I wonder if I can write such a long blog about a concert that I liked. This one was really fun.

I find that a cappella music doesn’t irritate my audio sensitivities as much as most instrumental music. Also this one was not too loud. I find that with the Broadway theaters. They seem to know how to make the volume just right. It’s loud enough that you can hear it distinctly. But it’s not so loud that it hurts your ears. I don’t know why other venues can’t get that right.

I saw Home Free live a few years back. They were very good then, but they’re better now. They’ve become better dancers. Their voices sound even more beautiful than before. They’ve learned how to use looping.

Adam Rupp, who was always amazing, has become just incredible. His solo was quite long. The sounds he made were astounding diverse. He even did Michael Jackson and he danced like Michael Jackson. He did things like a high kick, while beatboxing, and singing falsetto at the same time. I don’t know how he could do that. It was really phenomenal. I should’ve recorded it. I didn’t. I was just floored.

It was interesting thatTim Faust described Adam as this being the founder of the band. Previously I thought I it was  his brother Chris. Perhaps they founded it together. I don’t know. I had thought Chris had drafted Adam. It’s funny how the stories change over time. But Chris hasn’t been around for a while. He’s been pursuing a solo career but seems to be going in a different direction musically from Home Free, tho I know Tim Foust did a video with him not too long ago.

Once, in comments to a YouTube video, there were indications that Austin Brown might have been having personality conflicts with other band members – leading me to wonder if that had anything to do with Chris’s departure.

I feel like their videos have lost a lot, since his departure. He was the brains behind the group, I think. Their music is still very beautiful, but the videos used to be really funny, and they’re not now.. but they still make amazing music, which isn’t a total loss.

I was sad that the hall wasn’t filled. I thought they were this really famous band. YouTube led me to them. I assumed YouTube would lead other people to them.  They have millions of views. Still, a lot of people still haven’t heard of them.

This summer I met a guy who works as a DJ doing country music in New Hampshire. To my shock he had never heard of Home Free. I had him listen to some YouTube videos on my phone. Maybe he will remember that he has heard of them now.

At least Home Free got a number 2 record with this last album, and a world tour. That is pretty amazing for people who are supported mainly by Patreon and YouTube, and not a record label.

I guess there are too many acts, too many celebrities, too much music. Everyone can’t hear everything.  Still they are really good, and people should go see them. I don’t understand why the hall wasn’t full.

The people who were there were enthusiastic. I feel New York audiences are generally exceptionally supportive. I think that’s because many of us have been performers or are still trying to be performers, so we know what it is to be up there.

I bought an album, even though it was seemingly overpriced $25. I told myself it would be worth it because I was going to get an autograph. But then I didn’t. It was a long line for autographs. I wanted to catch a train. I had to get up early the next morning. The theater was only eight minutes walk from Grand Central, and there was a train leaving in 20 minutes.

But, as Tim Faust pointed out, if we want them to continue performing we have to buy their music so that they can afford to keep making music, so I guess it was OK, though I wonder if I’ll listen to it

I really thought I would be able to trust Home Free not to shine bright lights in my eyes. But that rust turned out to be missplaced. They did shine very bright light lights into my eyes for one song. Also the opening number started out backlit, like the  Greyson Chance concert the day before. The backlighting hurt my eyes too.

They had us make Instagram post because they wanted us to create a buzz fror the concert, or rather for the group. They promised that during intermission I would look at all the Instagram posts and give someone a free backstage pass. I actually made three posts, very unusual for me, but they didn’t choose me. They are very conscious of social media. They know that their success depends upon it.

Tim seemed to get the loudest cheers from the audience.  I guess that makes sense. I've always found him the most charismatic of the group.

Tim said there were celebrities in the audience.  I didn't go up to the balcony railing to ogle them, so I don't know who those folks were.  He said they were a cappella royalty, so I'm thinking Pentatonix, but who knows?

I may add more later

#HomeFreeGuys #TownHallNYC #DiveBarSaints #DiveBarSaintsWorldTour

@greysonchance Sony Hall NYC

The evening started out oddly. The train was on the wrong track; and very, very full. I’ve never taken the 6 PM Saturday evening train into the city, Are they always that full?  It's supposedly off peak.

Plus virtually everyone on the train into NYC was under 30 -- very few people of any other age group; other than one woman who, as it turned out, was trying to go to Yonkers -- not New York City -- and failed to transfer at Croton. She had to have strangers help her find out where she was. She looked very confused. That always scares me. I fear that someday I’ll be that way.

I wondered, looking at all those young people, could they all be going to see Greyson Chance, like me? I had never been to the Sony Hall. I didn’t know how large it was. Could it have been large enough to take that many people? As it turned out no, it wasn’t. They must’ve all been going somewhere else, though the hall was quite full. Still it only holds a few hundred people. It certainly couldn’t hold a whole train load.

I first heard of Greyson Chance, as I suppose so many people did, because he was on the Ellen show, after a video of him playing “Paparazzi” went viral. He was a very cute genius, who sang bubblegum pop music. It immediately became clear that he was not your typical performer, as he began writing so many of his own songs, and so quickly. Other people in the music industry were impressed.

I thought of going to see one of his concerts back then, but then I saw a YouTube video. The audience was full of preteen girls screaming at the top of their lungs, in ear piercing shrieks. I just knew that I could not  subject myself to all that screaming.

Tonight Greyson had one of those girls, who he remembered from 2010, onstage to thank her for her consistent fandom.

Then, back when he was 14 or so, his voice changed. He dropped out of the spotlight, tho I never stopped following him on twitter.

I kept tuning in from time to time to his YouTube channel, to see what he was doing. I can’t say as I liked it very much. He sounded like he was getting into stuff that would be kind of esoteric intellectual art, but not my style. But I knew something was gonna happen. He was too great of a genius for something not to happen. And, then, from time to time, a song did come out that I liked.

Then a video came out of a concert that seemed quieter, so I thought maybe I could dare go to hear him.

The next time I saw him on Ellen he was 6 foot one and one of the skinniest human beings on the planet. As with so many young men who have shot up quickly, he was awkward. His voice was still a little crackly.

He insisted that not much had changed as far as he was concerned, other than the voice, but that was clearly false. The energy of his music had totally changed. It was much slower more agonized, less pop, more bluesy. It was remarkable to me that he was so unaware of himself as to not be able to hear that.

But I thought I’d give it a try – see if I could stand one of his concerts.

When I got to Sony hall, the doorman thought he recognized me. I told him I didn’t think I had ever been there before. After going in, I’m sure I had never been there before. Another weird thing.

The hall is down two flights of stairs in a sub basement. When I got to the door downstairs, the lady looked quickly at my white hair and said “do you know that this is a standing only concert?“  I either hadn’t noticed that or I had forgotten it. Probably I didn’t read the ticket description well enough. So I shook my head.

She expected I would want to sit. I decided to nod. I probably could have stood, but I decided that discretion would be the better part of valor, and decided to sit. The only seats available were at tables, where they were serving food and drinks. The lady at the door assured me that I wouldn’t have to buy anything.

There was a large crowd of people between me and the stage. I wasn’t sure if I would actually see Grayson when he finally came out. Sometimes I wondered if he had already come out and had started. I thought I heard him singing over the loudspeaker, though it could’ve been any music. I hoped I would see him on the stage when he came out, but I wasn’t sure.

The time went on. My tickets said the concert was supposed to start at 8 PM. He didn’t actually come out till 830. Maybe I missed something. Maybe he was supposed to come out at 8:30, so that people would buy lots of drinks, I don’t know. It did seem to me very rude to make people stand for half an hour with nothing happening on stage.

I did notice when he finally came out, because they turned off the lights and everyone started cheering. I did have to stand during the concert to see over the crowd, but at least I had a chair to put my coat on.  The other people had checked their coats.  It struck me odd seeing all those very young people checking coats, which seems like an older person thing.  Now I know why. If I go there again, I will check my coat.

Another odd thing about this venue was that there were lavender colored lights in the women’s room, or maybe a combination of red and blue that seemed lavender. I always carry a packet of Clorox "To Go" wipes with me so that I can clean toilet seats, in public restrooms. The package is normally green, but in that light it looked blue.

The restroom had an aggressive attendant, who held the only dispenser of hand soap and squirted it into everyone’s hands. She was obviously fishing for a tip. You would have to look at her if she was the only source of soap. She was clearly hoping to guilt me into tipping. I didn’t tip her.

At least she didn’t try to hand me paper towels. I’ve had restroom attendants try to do that. That strikes me as very unsanitary.

What surprised me about this concert, was that he was backlit. Most of the time he was silhouetted against the lights. I wondered about that. Normally performers, as part of the job, have to endure bright light shining in their eyes so that the audience can see their faces. Certainly the audience would want to see Grayson‘s face. He’s extraordinarily good looking.

But, somehow, he got away with us not seeing his face, or only occasionally seeing his face during flashes of light.  Maybe he’s sensitive to bright lights? 

He started out dancing. A lot of the background music was recorded, including choruses of himself singing several tracks. He danced with his back to us during some of those recordings at the beginning. I don’t think he used to dance. He must’ve been working on it. He’s 22 now. He’s started to learn how to use that very tall body effectively. Also his voice is considerably less crackly. He’s learned to use the voice too. It’s sounding good.

Unfortunately, though, the volume was very high, even though there were no shrieking preteen girls. I had my earplugs in for most of the concert. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I have very sensitive ears. I might’ve been able to get through the concert without earplugs, but I was definitely more comfortable with them. It was sort of borderline as to whether they were necessary or not.

I know some people really like loud music. I don’t. Also, in this case, I don’t see where the style of music that Grayson is currently performing would necessarily have to be loud. It’s sort of slow and he’s a little reminiscent of Dean Martin in the way he sings, except for the falsetto. But I'm pretty sure Dean Martin wouldn't have been so loud.

Falsetto seems to be obligatory these days. I’m not a huge fan of the falsetto. But I’m getting used to it, and not just for this performer.

Greyson is still a genius. Songs come out of him like water out of a fire hose turned on full blast. He writes them faster than he can get them onto albums. He played at least one unreleased song for us. I wouldn’t necessarily have known. I did buy an EP of his recently, but he only sang one song from that. Mostly he was singing songs from his new album, “Portraits.”

He did sing a few songs I recognized from recent music videos. I don’t know their titles, the one about "emotiosaurus feelings,"  the one about “your two lips,” and the one about "white roses."  I often tend to relate better to music that I have heard before, so I appreciated hearing those.

He told us some of his story of struggling to get back into performing after his voice changed, how he lost his agent, and no one wanted to hear from him. Obviously he had gone through a lot.

He referred to that original Lady Gaga song, “Paparazzi,“ that got him into the public eye. He played a few chords from it. The audience got excited. He could tell that everyone wanted to hear him play it again, but he said “there’s not enough money in the world.“ I thought that was a bit sad.

Again those of you who may have been reading this blog know that I’ve been a Grobanite. I know that it wasn’t Josh’s original idea that he was going to have to sing “You Raise Me Up” at every single concert for the entire rest of his life. And you could see a few years ago that he was getting a little restless with it. But he sees he has to. He’s come to terms with it. It’s his biggest hit. The audience wants to hear it. He has to sing it. He copes with it by having the audience sing part of it back to him. He enjoys hearing the audience sing it.

When I saw Arlo Guthrie, he said that if he had known that he was going to have to play “Alice’s Restaurant” every single day for the rest of this life, he would have made it shorter – yet he knew he had to play it, and play the whole thing.

If you look at recordings of Michael Jackson concerts, you’ll see that he always sang at least one song from his childhood concerts. There was also a backdrop, showing pictures of his family, during that old song.

Lots of artists have to perform their very old songs.  It goes with the territory.

I can understand, with so many new songs, why Greyson doesn’t want to sing “Paparazzi” now. But I kind of think he should. After all, that is what most people remember about him. They’re going to want to hear it. I know he wants to play the new stuff that he just wrote, that’s coming out faster than he can put it onto records, but he has to think a little bit about why the audience is there. They want to hear the songs they fell in love with.

If he doesn't want to play "Paparazzi," maybe he could choose one of his other popular songs from his child performer days, like the "unfriend you" song, or "Little London Girl," or even "Purple Sky."  But he can't just ignore that period of his professional life when reaching out to fans.

He did play the piano some. I had sort of hoped I would hear more of that, but I guess he felt, as I think many performers have found, that he needs to be up there on the stage facing the audience and not focusing on the piano.  Still, I know that he's a brilliant pianist.  I wish he would show that off more.

Most of the background music was recorded. But it wasn’t entirely a karaoke concert. There was a guitarist up there. I wasn’t sure whether the guitarist was always playing the guitar. It seemed like he was sometimes playing a synthesizer, or controlling what was going on in the background music, apparently there was also a tech guy who was controlling the background as well.. There must’ve been some kind of a drum up there, because Grayson was using some drumsticks and hitting something, but I don’t really know what it was.  It was hard to see much with the back lighting and all the people standing in front of me.

Sony Hall was small enough that an audience member was able to pass a note up to Grayson. Greyson started reading the note out loud. The guy who passed it up was embarrassed. It turned out that the guy had asked Greyson to go on a date. Grayson seem to indicate that he might do it.  Greyson said that what he was looking for in a guy was somebody who would stick around.  Actually, he used the "f" word, but I don't do that.

In one more recent Ellen interview, he referenced that he had someone who left, someone he was serious about . I don’t think genius goes very well with successful romantic relationships. The level of focus and obsession that one has to have to do what Greyson does, doesn’t leave a lot of space for romance, or social skills. But I hope he does succeed in finding a good partner.

I don’t know if I’ll go see him again. It was loud. He uses a lot of profanity. I’m not sure I really like this kind of music. But, on the other hand, he’ll likely keep coming out with new songs, and likely keep changing styles. Geniuses get bored, after all, so I may find out that he does something that makes me want to go see him again.

When I left there was a line. It seem to be going towards the restroom. I asked if this was the restroom line. The people told me no it was the merchandise line. So I was able to squeeze past and go into the restroom. It’s an indication of how young people were that the women weren’t lined up to use the restroom, after the concert -- and the merchandise was more important to them than the restroom.

There’s something about getting hooked on a performer. At least for me, it isn’t so important generally what they’re doing once you’re kind of bonded to them. So I’ll probably keep following him on social media until he comes up with something I feel more anxious to hear again.

#greysonchance #sonyhallnyc #portraitstour