American Idol Tour — Hartford, CT

I don’t have any video and not many pictures because the indicator on my camera’s battery lies. My camera is so happy to be taking pictures in the dark that it builds up its energy for a couple of seconds so it can release it all at once in an arena-filling burst. It can do that about five times.

Concession stand. Pretty weak, I know, but I’m telling you, you won’t see the Idols here. Well, just one.
The place was PACKED. The floor of the XL arena was ankle deep in estrogen, given wide berth by the unlucky husbands, sonds and brothers who were dragged along. I didn’t really know what to expect from the tour. Last year’s had been jammy and casual, but I saw an interview with David Cook that made it sound like everyone would just come in, sing three songs, and then leave; except he would get five. And that’s pretty much what it was. They came on stage in reverse order from number ten to number one, did their piece, and left.

The whole gig was sponsored by Pop-Tarts and Guitar Hero. During the intermission, they played a Pop-Tarts commercial where two Little Green Men (LGMs) were trying to convince each other that Pop-Tarts were part of a good breakfast. Finally, we find life in the universe that can eat those. There was a huge Guitar Hero booth surrounded by smaller stations where people were rocking out. Later on, two of the best were brought on stage to go head to head on Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”. On medium. They did horribly. They did play a video showing the Idols goofing off with Guitar Hero World Tour, the one with the drums. Jason Castro, a drum player in real life, was amazing, but everyone else was just goofing off.
The concert itself? If you’re still reading this, a full run-down of the concert, including Kristy Lee Cook’s desperate need for validation, Chikezie’s awesomeness, and the showoff between the two Davids … is after the break.

Oh my GAWD! It’s COREY THE WARM UP COMIC! Gah, sorry. See, if you’re an American Idol geek, you read all those Popwatch articles that E! does where they have a reporter in the audience for all the AI performance and results nights. And they would never fail to talk about Corey the Warm Up Comic’s opening act. And he did the whole thing for us! Made me feel like I was right there, in Hollywood, watching AI live. He was actually pretty funny sometimes.

First up was Idol #10, Chikezie Ezie. I liked him on American Idol, was sorry to see him go, and last night — he was amazing, and you can see some of that awesomeness in the video below. I was totally there for every note. As first act, he got the chance to do a lot of the “Hello, INSERT NAME OF YOUR CITY HERE!” stuff, but I bought it all. If all the other acts had been this good, well, I guess I’d have been shocked. But I pretty much liked who I liked on the show and didn’t like what I didn’t care for on the show.

#9 finisher, Ramiele Malubay, was up next. She is SHORT. In one of the two group songs, she was paired up with Carly Smithson and it was just Mutt and Jeff with them. She started off with a Jackson 5 song, “I Want You Back”, that was pretty decent (below). Then she did a Taylor Dane song and a Maroon 5 song. Does anyone actually like Maroon 5? Aside from the American Idol producers? So I pretty much was ready for the next act after the Jackson 5 song.

Next up was Michael Johns, the Aussie rocker. I was just leaning over to hopefully wake my son up by telling him that this was the guy who had sung Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” during Hollywood Week, when he opens up with Queen’s “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions”. If you ever want to get a crowd excited, give them a song they know all the words to. He ended with the song that got him booted from American Idol, Aerosmith’s “Dream On”. They were note perfect, so you already know what they sounded like. Here’s his middle song, “It’s All Wrong”. He was one of my early faves on the show and I was sorry to see him eliminated so soon. After his set, I wanted to listen to some Huey Lewis. Just saying.

I am not a Kristy Lee Cook fan. I didn’t like her on American Idol and didn’t last night. She opened with “Cowgirls” and closed with “Squeezin’ the Love Outta You”, where she’d send the song into a climax, and the crowd would clap, and she’d urge more clapping — and then sing more of the song and do it again… Sigh. Her middle song was “God Bless America”, a song about the people who fight for freedom, which made me angry when she sang it on the show and last night, not because of the song, but because Americans are out fighting so that the government has an excuse to remove our freedoms. Our right to privacy. Our right to be innocent until proven guilty. Not her fault. Below is the song she sang in Toronto, Canada instead of God Bless America, “Anyway”.

Next up, one of my faves from the show, Irish barmaid Carly Smithson. She opened with an amazing arrangement of Heart’s “Crazy on You” — she channels Ann Wilson so well, I loved seeing Carly and Ann sing together on American Idol during one of the finals shows (can’t find that on YouTube). But below is her performing thesong with her own unique intro in her home town (and my old home town) of San Diego. Nobody thought she would win, but I would have liked to have seen her and Michael Johns place a little further up.

Brook White was a nervous wreck on the show, and had a much-parodied habit of starting songs off on the wrong foot and having to start them over. She was still one of my favorite acts. Last night she started off at the piano for “Let It Be”. Her middle song was Feist’s “1234”, a song I hadn’t heard before.

After her set, she introduced a piece about the “Idol Gives Back” relief charity, and she and the other bottom six Idols did a group number, leading into the intermission.
Jason Castro, AI season 7’s token hippie, started off accompanying himself on ukulele on “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. It brought down the house on the show, but it took last night’s crowd a little time to get into it. Who followed that up on guitar with “Crazy”, and finished up with a psychedelic rendition of Lovin’ Spoonfull’s “What a Day for a Daydream”.

I was a big supporter of Syesha Mercado when she was on the show. Mostly, I wanted her to bump David Archuletta from the top two. She made a good try, but couldn’t manage it. She was born here in Connecticut, in Bridgeport, which is usually code for “my parents work in New York City”. She sang “If i Ain’t Got You”, “Umbrella”, and Beyonce’s “Listen”, which Syesha sang as if it were a Whitney song. Mostly I was just enjoying watching the cameramen who were circling the runway try NOT to shoot pictures under her way-too-short dress.

I slept through the next performer. I checked the web site, and apparently it was someone named David Archuletta. No, seriously, I thought he might let loose or something live, but he didn’t. He was just as snoozerific as he was on AI. I did enjoy noticing that he mixed up Sam Cooke’s “Stand By Me” in the same way that got him into so much trouble on the show. Video is of that song in front of his home town crowd in Salt Lake City. Note that the thanks “for standing by me”, which kinda made sense to the SLC audience, was the same patter he used in Hartford last night.

And now for the biggest disappointment of the night. My guy, David Cook. I was expecting some severe rockage. Michael Johns and Carly Smithson had done a great job with the classic rock, but now was time for something new. I made a CD of his AI tunes and his solo album, “Analog Heart”, and listened to it for months, and guess what happened — I got tired of it. He doesn’t switch his vocals up much, and in the end, all his songs sounded pretty much the same to me.
Cook opened up his five song set with Lionel Richie’s “Hello”. Next song was that song they make him sing as punishment for winning. Then he raised the lights and took pictures of the crowd. When the lights came back down, he picked up the guitar and strummed the first few chords of “Pretty Woman”, but said that wasn’t on the set list. He dedicated “My Hero” to his older brother who is undergoing treatment for cancer, went into his best song of the night, “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” (below), and finished up with “Billie Jean”.

People who knew I was going to last night’s concert have been asking me how excited I was. And I had to tell them all that i wasn’t feeling it for David Cook as much as I was just after he won. The highlights of the night for me were Carly Smithson, Michael Johns and Brooke White. I mean, it was great seeing David Cook and all of them, really, because… well, a year ago nobody had heard of them, and now they fill concert halls. How great is that? Since virtually all of them were in bands or pro or semi-pro singers before the show, it’s not like they were just plucked from nowhere, but none of them were making a living from it. And now, that’s all changed.
Still, hey, no surprises, but it was a fun night nonetheless. I’m glad I went.