The voyage to the St. George Theater in Staten Island was pretty long for me, coming from Westchester. I chose to go on public transportation, because I otherwise would have been driving down there during rush hour and that might make things difficult from a restroom point of view. Also, I wanted to ride the Staten Island Ferry, which I have not been on for many years.
The weather was good for a ferry ride. It was neither hot nor cold and the water was quite calm.
Everybody else looks so young on public transportation these days. Maybe older people like me aren't back on yet.
The St George is a very beautiful historical theater, with ornate decorations. It's a very short walk from the ferry, though a shopping mall and a park and then one more block.
The Fosters were good, tho the repartee sounded tenser than it used to. I hope their marriage is ok. They did mention that Dave was on oxy for back pain, though, and they had both just gotten over a virus, so that might have affected their mood.
I like to sit in the back row of the upper balcony, so no one is breathing on me. Unfortunately this meant that the video material they were showing was partially blocked with scaffolding. They showed an interesting video of the history of the artists that David worked with. I couldn’t see all the faces, though I recognized some anyway.
They had their three year old son, Rennie, out there playing drums briefly. He’s obviously taking after his dad who was playing with adult orchestras at age six.
They also had Daniel Emmett singing, and some audience members. Originally, Dave said he would have 2 audience members sing. He ended up letting 2 more sing. They were all 4 really good. Kat said it made her nervous that there were so many good singers, but it was New York after all. One of the women was only 18. Dave told her she was going to be singing on Broadway.
The concert was supposed to end at 9:30, but they got out closer to 10, maybe because more audience members sang. Some of the audience members said that they were going to sing a capella, but the band was always able to pick up and join in.
There were three eminent band members whose history they also discussed and played excerpts from. We often don’t get to hear about studio musicians who are typically amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the names of these band members. They had a bass, a drummer, and a synthesist.
I'm searching around the internet to find the names of the other performers. I think the bassist was Keith Nelson. The drummer was JR Robinson, who bills himself as Michael's drummer. I'm still searching around to find the keyboard/synth player, who was very impressive filling in orchestral sounds.
Daniel Emmett was on AGT, I think. He was introduced as a new Josh Groban. I would say Emmett has a wonderful voice, but he's not Josh Groban. Josh has a fabulous ability to convey emotion with his voice, in addition to having a beautiful voice. Emmett is good at conveying emotion, too, but he's just not Josh Groban.
Dave has said before that he's tried to find another Josh Groban, but hasn't. I still don't think he has, but Emmett is worth listening to nevertheless.
It was a good show, overall. I think Dave was discouraged that it wasn’t a bigger venue and wasn’t full, tho he didn’t say so. He likes to be a hit, though he’s always used famous singers as foils, disguising his role behind the scenes, because his singing isn’t so great, though it’s definitely improving.
I was impressed that his Russian counterpart, Igor Krutoy, is actually a wonderful, emotive singer as well. I think Dave might be getting there. It sounded to me like his voice was resonating more than it used to.
Kat sounded fabulous. They said she had been singing through a cold on that tour, which made me nervous. I once read a story about Placido Domingo's father damaging his voice singing through a cold.
In several cases, they played songs that had lost, rather than won. They did the number where they were kicked off Masked Singer, which Dave blamed Kat for, which I didn't like so much. It didn't sound like he was joking around. They played a song that had lost for an Oscar to a song from Top Gun. Dave blamed the casting of the movies for the fates of the songs, so he showed scenes from Top Gun during his song, to try to illustrate how his song might have won with a better movie. He said his music had been nominated for Oscars 3 times and had always lost. That's ok. He has plenty of Grammys.
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