Posted at 11:59 pm
Apr 27 2010
- http://blogs.todayonline.com/poparazzi/2010/04/27/kelly-clarkson-a-review-of-sorts/
HI there,
Your Abang here, just back from
the Singapore Indoor Stadium, where I have witnessed a
Kelly Clarkson concert. Now,
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a big fan of hers. Sure, I
know Since
You’ve Been Gone,Breakaway, Because Of You – but that’s
only because I work for a newspaper.
But anyway, the Kelly gig was the first gig at the Stadium that
I’ve seen in a while, and I was ready to be disappointed. But lo
and behold, I wasn’t. I’m not going to go into some long rambling
speech about it, mostly because I’m quite tired, but also because
there’s no need to.
The fans loved the show.
Period. What was surprising was that I didn’t not like the show.
Which is a good thing. The first thing that struck me was how much
she’s grown. As a singer, lah. I mean, sure, she was
tubbier than I remember her to be, but her voice was still as
strong and powerful as the last time she was here, if not
better.
The other thing that struck me was how easily she connected with
the audience. As she said, this was her first big gig here, so
there was a little nervousness I’ll bet. But Kelly came and Kelly
got on like wildfire, conversing with the crowd, and at one point
even pointing out her blooper as she halted momentarily during a
song. “You’d think I’d know this – I wrote it!” she joked.
When introducing Because Of You, she once again
corrected: “Some people thought I wrote this about a guy. I did
not!” During her “Twitter moment” – where she sang a string of
songs that her fans had Tweeted her to sing – it was as if we were
watching an intimate show, instead of being in the cavernous
SIS.
What I liked the most was
the way she just leapt into covers like it
was the most natural thing to do. I mean, not everybody can do
covers well. But it was her selection of songs that intrigued me.
Perhaps drawing on the current penchant for mash-ups, she
mixed Alanis Morissette’s That
I Would Be Good with Kings Of Leon’s Use Somebody, then later slipped in a snatch of
Kylie Minogue’s Can’t
Get You Out Of My Head, and for the encore, burst into
The White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army.
It was also interesting to see these two ladies next to me – who
had been sitting down, looking stoic the whole night – suddenly
jump up and shake their booty during Since You’ve Been Gone.
Maybe they were just waiting for that song, but they remained on
their feet for the encore. Which I guess, meant that the show
really worked. Kelly promised to be back (”After all that, we’ve
got to come back”) and then it was over. I didn’t expect much from
the show, but I got a lot more than I bargained for. And that’s a
good thing.
(Oh by the way, I have to say that the Circle Line is the best
thing to happen to public transport – for me, anyway. Otherwise,
I’d probably still be trying to get a cab or something at the SIS,
instead of being at home, having already eaten my dinner and typing
this before midnight.)
Thanks to Sim Yijin for
helping with the photos.
