Review: Michael Buble To Be Loved tour at The O2

Now Michael Buble is a man who knows how to put on a show, so much so that he's doing a 10 night residency at The O2.

The sold-out crowd at the North Greenwich venue on the fourth night of the To Be Loved tour were already excited before Buble came out, and things got hotter (literally) when flames burst out of the stage and the singer appeared, sliding (he must have special shoes) into place to sing Fever.

The show is a mix of Buble songs, and covers, with my favourite being a version of one of the summer's hottest songs - Get Lucky by Daft Punk. Trust me, it works, especially as Buble called on (phenomenal, go check them out) support act Naturally 7 to accompany him.

The group also work with Buble on a couple of other numbers, performed from a second stage towards the back of The O2 Arena (meaning, apart from the nosebleed seats, that everyone gets a good look at the singer without staring at a screen). Among them was an acapella performance of Michael Jackson's I Want You Back, which is brilliant.

While the acapella is great, Buble is mostly accompanied by a band, and I'm a sucker for people who can play musical instruments well. The band are fantastic, and Buble takes the time to introduce them properly during a long instrumental segment. While Team Buble are all fabulous, I particularly loved the drummer, who played a blinding musical interlude.

Buble's show is largely fun, the crowd (including me) getting on their feet for a lot of numbers, and there's a relaxed vibe throughout, with Buble sliding around a massive stage, parts of which move up and down, and with big screens projecting various images (some of the graphics feel a bit Gatsby-esque). There are some quieter moments, but they're still uplifting, such as when Buble sings Home, with a video projected onto the giant screen showing various people.

And then it livens back up again for the final segment of the main show, almost into a frenzy as thousands of red and white paper hearts flutter down from the ceiling and Buble sings numbers including The Beatles' All You Need Is Love, and his own It's A Beautiful Day.

Of course, he does come back out for an encore, the most impressive bit of which is the final number, A Song For You. Unexpectedly at the end of the song Buble steps away from the microphone and sings with just a piano accompanying him. If you're watching this at future shows, don't cheer (or you'll drown him out), just listen as Buble's voice fills up the arena, reminding you why you're a fan in the first place.

Review: Josh Groban All That Echoes at The O2

The last time Josh Groban was in London on tour (the Straight to You tour) he played the Hammersmith Apollo, a relatively small, pretty intimate venue. Those descriptors can't be applied to The O2, the venue for this year's All That Echoes tour.

The cavernous arena at The O2 should have made for a very different kind of gig - this should have been a stadium concert, but it actually retained the intimacy that Groban created at the Apollo.

Granted, this time there was no bringing people up on stage, seating them on a sofa and sharing a drink with them, but there was still a Q&A with fans, and Groban's trademark self-deprecating comments.

The show started with Brave, the first song on the newest Groban album, All That Echoes. While this was a show that included songs from earlier in Groban's career (including February Song and Machine), most of the numbers played were off the new album. Personally, there were a few old favourites I'd like to have seen performed, but that's just my wish list.

Groban did, however, perform my favourite song off the new album - Happy in my Heartache. While I love it recorded, it's even better live.

As is everything. Groban's voice is more than big enough to fill The O2, and his band are phenomenal. A particular favourite moment of mine was the musical interlude about half way through the show, which began with an amazing violin solo by lead violinist Christian Hebel. I could have watched a whole show of just music by Hebel and the rest of the band, and Groban himself came out and showed off his skills on the drums during the number.

As a local touch, Groban was accompanied on stage by London choir Ovation during I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever) and You Raise Me Up, and props go to them for being utterly brilliant.

Groban filled the arena with two hours of gorgeous music, interspersed with the kind of humour and conversation that reminds you not all music stars are manufactured and kind of plastic. Despite the hugeness of the setting, this concert felt as intimate as if it had been performed in a room half the size (or smaller).

For those looking for a stunning voice, well written songs and highly talented musicians, a Groban show should be just your bag.

Review: Idina Menzel at the Apollo Theatre

Idina Menzel. Picture: Robin Wong

The lights go down, the band starts playing, and then through the darkness a voice starts singing and shivers go up my spine.

I'm sitting in the Apollo Theatre, where Broadway legend Idina Menzel is performing as part of a week long residency.

She starts with Somewhere Over the Rainbow, singing the famous lines while we in the crowd desperately try to work out where she is. 

And then, suddenly, she's bouncing, actually bouncing like Tigger, out onto the stage looking gorgeous in a ballgown with bare feet, a look she's become known for.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow seagues into The Wizard And I from Wicked, which is a song I absolutely love, but is often overlooked or put aside so crowd favourite Defying Gravity can be performed instead. It's a great choice, and with its powerful notes really gets the crowd smiling.

I saw Menzel last year at the Royal Albert Hall, a venue that's at least 10 times the size of the Apollo. She had no problem filling the Hall with her voice, but seeing her in a more intimate venue also works.

Most people would probably expect a musical theatre actress like Menzel to spend most of her concert performing show tunes, but she surprises by singing a host of songs from a host of genres - from the Barbra Streisand classic Don’t Rain on My Parade (which she sang at the Royal Albert Hall) to Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now to U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.

Peppered in between the songs are stories about Menzel's life and career, and I appreciated the fact that she didn't repeat any of the tales she told last year, even though she performed a few of the same numbers.

Some of her anecdotes are funny, some poignant, some both. One sees Menzel refer to her friend and mentor Marvin Hamlisch, who died recently and who conducted the Royal Philharmonic when she performed with them last year.

She speaks about his influence on her, before performing At The Ballet from A Chorus Line, which Menzel says she sang at Hamlisch’s funeral at the request of his family. She finishes the segment with another tale about Hamlisch and how he was a mentor to her, and allowed her to sit at the piano bench with him and sing. A bench is brought out and Menzel sits herself down, leaving a space where Hamlisch would have been, and sings an emotional rendition of What I Did For Love.

Happier moments come when Menzel sings Take Me Or Leave Me from Rent, the musical which was her first Broadway show (she also sings No Day But Today). In a great moment of crowd interaction three members of the audience are picked at random to sing Take Me Or Leave Me with Menzel. They rush out of the crowd, and include a girl who can’t be more than 13 and has a voice that more than stands up to Menzel’s - definitely a star of the future. I have to admit I'm more than a bit jealous of the singers, not just because they get to perform with Menzel, but because when I sing I sound like 10 cats yowling while 20 people run their fingernails down a blackboard.

Happily, she performs her version of Love For Sale mixed with Roxanne, which I will never get tired of hearing her sing, as well as Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes and snippets of Katy Perry's Firework and Beyonce's Single Ladies, which are great fun.
 
As well as well known standards Menzel performs two original numbers, both of which are touching, plus the afore-mentioned Defying Gravity. From Wicked she also sings For Good in tribute to the crowd, and is forced back on stage for an encore which ends with her “favourite song ever”, Somewhere from West Side Story, with its lyrics: “There’s a place for us/Somewhere a place for us”.

The standing ovation that greets Menzel shows her fans have found their place - right there cheering her on.

•Idina Menzel is at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, until Sunday, October 14.

Review: Jack Savoretti at Bush Hall

"This is the weirdest gig I've ever been to."

We're at Bush Hall in Shepherd's Bush, standing in the midst of a crowd of Jack Savoretti fans while the man himself is on stage. My friend, let's call her V, has just turned to me and said the above. What prompted her?

Well, some random guy in the audience has, in the lull between songs, just yelled for everyone to hear: "I'm having a great time, Jack."

I'm having a surreal time, and so is V (and my other friend F). This isn't like any gig I've been to before either.

For a start there's the strange demographic of the crowd. Aside from the guy who's having a great time, there are a bunch of Jack Wills-wearing Oxbridge types, plenty of older couples, a load of "yummy mummies" and lots and lots of men who keep shouting about having a great time, or just making general yelling man noises showing they're having a great time.

V's theory is that Savoretti is the kind of guy inspires bromance among the fellow members of his sex, that he makes guys feel how Bruce Springsteen makes guys feel - that kind of guys hanging out, being cool together vibe. I can sort of see it (Savoretti wears a Springsteen-esque half unbuttoned shirt and he's got that confidence), but, and I really like Savoretti, I'm still reluctant to buy into that theory. Still, it goes some way to explaining the men clapping really, really loudly, yelling and sticking their arms in the air in that pop rock way while they sing along.

The other thing leading me to have a surreal time is the double bass player in Savoretti's band, Tom Benzon. He's really, really talented, but really, really distracting. There's no delicate way to put this - he makes come hither faces while he plays. And caresses his double bass like it's a woman (or a man). And there may have been hip movement.

Still, apart from the strange make up of the audience, the men shouting how much they love Savoretti (I expect to hear someone yell: "Come on, my son") and the distracting double bass player, it's a great gig (for me, V's not a fan).

Savoretti has a brilliant energy, which is perhaps why the crowd gets so whipped up - there's a moment when everyone goes nuts at the opening chords of Dreamers after Savoretti dedicates it to "all the old friends".

I don't have to wait too long before Savoretti plays Vagabond, which is my favourite song off the new album, Before the Storm. Yes, it wasn't among the two favourites I was debating about when I reviewed Before the Storm, but since then it's shot to the top of my playlist.

Savoretti does play those two previously favourite songs of mine - For the Last Time and The Proposal. He gives For the Last Time a sharp twist, infusing it with much more anger than on the album. 

Take Me Home features vocals from a girl called Rebecca (I think) who won a competition to try and find the best cover version of the song. She's sweet but looks terrified, and only relaxes when Savoretti throws smiles at her.

Savoretti's voice is, if possible, huskier in person than it is recorded, but that's no bad thing in my opinion, and judging by the opinions of the shouting masses around me.

This might be the most surreal gig I've been to, but it's also pretty fun - a great support act (Melodica, Melody and Me - I'm definitely going to find out more about them), a crowd that makes me laugh (if only for weird reasons) and a talented musician on stage.

Hey, Jack, I'm having a great time...

Album review: Before the Storm by Jack Savoretti

Jack Savoretti's new album is Before the Storm. Picture: Claire Nathan

How is it that I'd never heard anything by Jack Savoretti before listening to his new album Before the Storm?

Savoretti plays exactly the kind of music I like best - plenty of heartbreak, lots of guitars and piano, and lyrics that are poetry.

Before the Storm is a mix of styles, with Savoretti segueing effortlessly between folk, country, classic pop and rock, sometimes using more than one genre in just one song.

The second track on the album, Take Me Home, has a great guitar riff and highlights Savoretti's husky voice, which has that quality you can't quite put your finger on but that just makes you believe every word he's singing.

Take Me Home is a song to make you melt, with its pleading chorus: "Take me home with you tonight/I'm not going to make it down this lonely street/Take me home with you tonight/I'm not going to make it on my own."

It's a toss up between the upbeat The Proposal and the mournful final track For the Last Time as to which is my favourite song on the album.

The Proposal is hopeful despite its metaphor of building a bridge and watching it burn, and it also contains my favourite lyrics on the album: "Living in your absence/I see memories when I cry/I hear songs in the key of silence/I'm not ready yet to die."

But then there's For the Last Time, a song which just makes me feel every emotion Savoretti is singing about - heartbreak and grief and resignation and determination. It's beautifully crafted and the perfect piece of grown up angst.

Knock Knock is a fun track, which with its lyrics and its rhythms conjures up images of old-style saloons from those westerns that tend to be on television on long Sunday afternoons.

It's not just Knock Knock which shows Savoretti is good at forming pictures with his lyrics. Vagabond, with its poetic chorus - "the life of a vagabond/searching for a fool's gold/with the eyes of a gypsy/and the life of a rebel soul..." - makes me think of the endless road Savoretti sings about.

Before the Storm is really one long love song with all its ups and downs, but despite tracks like the aforementioned Take Me Home and album opener Not Worthy ("I'm not worthy of your love/I'm barely keeping up), Savoretti sounds far from desperate on Before the Storm. Rather, he comes across as a brutally honest songwriter, unafraid to expose his deepest emotions. It's an attractive quality and the one which makes Before the Storm such a good album.

Album review: Introduction by It Boys!

Hello boyband that should have been around in the 1990s, thy name is It Boys!

Yes, you read that right - It Boys! With the exclamation mark. This five-piece American boyband's debut album, Introduction, transports me back 15 years to a time when (mostly American) boybands ruled the land (okay, just the airwaves). Think Backstreet Boys. Think N Sync.

Let's just go through the boyband rule book and see if It Boys! meet the criteria:  

• Five members? Check.
• At least one blond? Check.
• A song about a beautiful girl who just can't see how beautiful she is? Check.
• A song called Crazy? Check.

Introduction is typical first-album-from-a-boyband fare from the beginning, with plenty of upbeat tunes, lots of that weird echo/singing in a cave effect that boybands like, and some guest vocals by people you've not yet heard of (and perhaps never will).

I may sound quite harsh up to now, but that's probably because I'm way past my boyband phase and this album is just too teenybopper for me. 

However, Introduction is fun to listen to, if only because it reminds me of when I was younger. If I was 13 right now, I'd probably think It Boys! were amazing.

As it is, most of the songs just make me laugh - Guys Don't Like Me, the band's debut UK single, features the lyrics:

Guys don't like me
These guys, they don't like me
These guys, don't like me
Cause their girlfriends do.

Genius.

There are plenty of upbeat tunes, from the opener Start the Party, to Spring Break Up (I think this is a play on words about breaking up with someone during the American holiday spring break, but I'm not sure), to the final track Burning Up, featuring Jeffree Star and Lacey Schwimmer, the latter of whom was a professional dancer on Dancing With the Stars, America's version of Strictly Come Dancing.

What is missing is a good boyband ballad. And really, what kind of boyband are you without a mournful ballad where every member gets a turn to sound heartbroken on the vocals? Even the one that isn't usually allowed to sing.

Introduction may be slightly "rockier" than some of the earlier stuff released by popular American boybands in the 1990s, but it's about the same level of rocky as those same bands later work. If you travelled back to 1998 with this album, no one would bat an eyelid at how different it sounded from all the other boybands around then, because it doesn't sound different. 

Teen girls who love The Wanted and One Direction (two bands I am now too old to understand the attraction to) will love It Boys! but for those of us past the days of screaming over boys with floppy hair, passable vocal ability and a talent for looking moody, this isn't anything to get excited about. Now, Backstreet's Back, that was a great boyband album...

Album review: Interstellar by Frankie Rose

'80s influences are clear on Frankie Rose's Interstellar

I didn’t know what to expect when I popped Frankie Rose’s Interstellar into the CD player in the car, but what I got was a great melding of ‘80s electronica and pop with smooth vocals and a modern twist.

Interstellar has a dream-like sound, and if it was played over a scene in a film the scene would be the one where the hero or heroine sees their loved one in a new light, literally - it would involve a flower-filled meadow and dappled sunlight.

The album is a mix of all-out loud tracks and some quieter moments.

The highlight for me was Pair of Wings, which is essentially just a chorus and a verse repeated over a slow, sultry backing track. Its simplicity is what made me fall in love with it, and have it on repeat for journeys to and from work.

Had We Had It is supercharged, and after a quiet few seconds bursts into life. Surprisingly the vocals on the bridge reminded me a little of Enya's Orinoco Flow, which luckily I love.

It would have been easy for this album to sound dated. Everyone loves a bit of ‘80s electronica, but I doubt there are many people who would want to listen to a modern artist whose album sounds like it should have been released in the ‘80s.

Luckily, while this album is heavily influenced by the ‘80s (lots of synth), the lyrics, vocals and even the instrumentals have an undeniably fresh twist.

Speaking about the album Frankie says: 

                      “I always have a big picture in mind.

                      “I knew I wanted a huge sounding record. Big highs, big lows and clean.

                       There is no fuzz on this record.

                      “I knew I wanted to make a streamlined, spacious record with big choruses

                       that sometimes referenced ‘80s pop.”

This is a clean album with big highs and big lows, so Frankie has clearly succeeded in her mission.

Interstellar follows an album released in 2010 by Frankie Rose and the Outs. If her earlier stuff is anywhere near as good as Interstellar, then I need to invest in her back catalogue.

Review: Glee: The Music - Volume 7

The best Glee numbers, generally speaking and in my opinion, are the big productions, whether they're solos, duets or group numbers.

And it's the season's best production so far, the mash-up of Adele's Rumour Has It/Someone Like You, that is the standout on Glee: The Music - Volume 7, the album of songs from the first half of the programme's third series. Packed full of drama, sadness, anger and more, it's even better in its full version than it was in the shorter cut used on the programme, with Amber Riley and Naya Rivera's talents shown off fully. These two singers blend brilliantly together, yet you can always tell their voices apart as they soar over and around each other.

Unfortunately, while the best song is on the album, many of the other brilliant numbers from the third season are missing. Among them are I'm the Greatest Star, Something's Coming, Spotlight and America (plus all the numbers from West Side Story apart from Tonight), to name but a few. It's no coincidence these are all songs originally from musicals - Glee, as close to a modern musical as we'll get on television, is really, really good at numbers from musicals. Why none of these songs, plus things like the mash-up of Anything Goes/Anything You Can Do, are not on this album puzzles me. Perhaps (and this is wishful thinking) all those songs will be released as part of a special Glee musicals album.

I'd also have liked to have seen Candyman, Perfect and Jolene included, and Damian McGinty's version of Take Care of Yourself would have been a great addition.

So if most of the best stuff is missing, what has been included? Unfortunately, some of the worst. The producers have chosen to include Heather Morris's version of Beyonce's Run the World (Girls) and Matthew Morrison's cover of Coldplay's Fix You. Even worse, these two songs are next to each other on the album. There's close to four minutes of Run the World, which was fun in its shorter version when you've also got the visuals of the scene to distract you, but is just interminable and all over the place in its full album version (no fault of Morris's, it's just a bad song). We're then treated to almost five minutes of Fix You, a depressing song that seems to go on forever. Morrison's voice sounds weak on this number, and by the end of both tracks I'm gritting my teeth and resisting the urge to just press the skip button.

Thankfully, it does get better, with some of the fun stuff from this series so far included. The group's version of You Can't Stop the Beat (a great number from a musical), Darren Criss's renditions of Katy Perry's Last Friday Night and Tom Jones's It's Not Unusual, and the Warblers' version of Uptown Girl, which brings a smile to my face every time I hear it, are all on here. The pace slows down with Tonight, the only song from West Side Story, the musical that was the focus of a large part of the first half of the third season, on this album. If it couldn't be America, at least it was Tonight, which is sung beautifully by Darren Criss and Lea Michele.

A complete contrast to Tonight is the next number, Hot for Teacher, sung by Mark Salling. It's a fun song, but definitely better to watch than just to listen to, especially with all the spoken parts. It works better when you can see Salling rocking out with his guitar, backed up by the crazy dance moves of Criss and Harry Shum Jr.

Broadway legend Idina Menzel gets to show off her vocal stylings on Somewhere, alongside Lea Michele, but she's better on Constant Craving, with Rivera and Chris Colfer (who should definitely feature on this album more). Constant Craving, originally by k.d.lang, is my favourite ballad on this album, although some may argue for the stripped down version of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, with Cory Monteith on lead vocals. It may not have seemed an appropriate song for an episode about a girl struggling with coming out to the world at large, but slowed down the focus is on the lyrics, which are as much about longing and acceptance as they are about girls wanting to have fun.

The album ends strongly, with covers of three songs originally by various members of the Jackson family - ABC by The Jackson Five, Janet Jackson's Control, and Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror. Partly, that's because these are just great songs. ABC is great because it showcases what's best about Glee - the group numbers where lots of people get the chance to show off their vocals (although this number is missing Lea Michele's vocals, it's nice to hear people like Jenna Ushkowitz). Control features the vocals of Criss, Kevin McHale and Dianna Agron. It's good to hear the latter two, as they've barely had a chance to sing this series so far. And Man in the Mirror showcases the vocal stylings of the club's male singers, without resorting to the rock songs they so often get lumped with when they sing in a group.

This isn't the best compilation of songs from Glee. It's missing coherency. If we go all the way back to the first album of songs, we can see that had a mission: to show off the best songs from Glee, and to convey the fun, the camaraderie and the vocal talents of the cast and characters. 

By contrast Volume 7 is a bit of a mish mash, perhaps because this season there haven't been many songs featuring the whole cast. That aside, if the album had included all the best songs from the series so far, it would have been a hit. As it is, despite the inclusion of strong numbers including the season's best song, it's something even the most hardcore Glee fans will struggle to love in its entirety. Instead, there'll be a lot of reaching for the skip button. Or a lot of ground down teeth.