David Cook enjoys some birthday cake with Natasha Bedingfield

Rodney Ho from American Idol Buzz attended the Q100 Miracle on Peach Street in Atlanta last night featuring David Cook plus Ryan Star, O.A.R and Natasha Bedingfield. He interviewed David before the show. Excerpt:

à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“What are you going to do in the new year?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ 

à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Weà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re going to hit the road. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s going to be an all-college tour in the spring. I remember I have an older brotherà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Indiana State college yearbook, Larry Birdà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s senior year. It had all these pages of concerts like Elvis Costello. You look at the current landscape of acts. Not a lot do college campuses. I want to bring it to the people who donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t get a lot of entertainment amid all the textbooks and make it fun.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ 

Summer, he noted, is still wide open. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“If anybody is interested, call me!à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ 

Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s still not sure of a second single. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“We still want to give à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Light Onà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ room to breath,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  he said.

Videos: Hunger Strike, birthday wishes and Barbasol Pt 1 , Barbasol Pt 2, Happy Birthday and Bar Ba Sol (from Rodney Ho – watch Santa Andy rock out with the band!)

Folk Fan was there too…and she submitted a detailed re-cap, right here…

I got to the club a bit before 6 pm to wait to get inside. On the negative side, I did not have a meet and greet pass. On the plus side, I got to witness a mother set aside her own personal desire to meet DC in favor of her adorable girls (approximately 8 and 10 years old) getting to meet him. The younger of the two kids was clutching a crossword puzzle book with a bow on it. I suspect that DCO’s yaminacookie’s Declaration-singing three-year-old twins may take the prize for cutest Cook fans, but these girls would be in the running for it. On the negative side, apparently, the station did not know that Center Stage has a strict no camera rule. Upon learning that, it sent some intern to give the people in line the bad news. Lots of people wander back to their cars to stow their cameras. Someone behind me was upset—she’d taken Marta (public transit), and could not put her camera in a car that she didn’t bring with her. I was mostly amazed that anyone took Marta much of anywhere.

More after the JUMP…

Okay, opener was Ryan Star, who was good. His rock moves were a bit cheesy, in light of the fact that it was just him and his acoustic guitar on the stage, surrounded by what turned out to be DC’s band set-up. (As an aside, I looked at said-same setup and pondered, hmm, looks like Andy’s keyboard. But every indication was that DC would be last, so I decided that that was a coincidence.) Anyhow, the songs seemed solid, his voice was good, acoustic rock makes me happy. His CD comes out some time next year. I’ll probably at least check it out.

DC was great. I was about 3 rows in back of the soundboard, dead center, about even with DC’s face throughout most of the show. Not the best for getting close-up views of his face, but great for catching the whole show, and the sound was awesome. (I should note that Center Stage is essentially a theater in the round. While some seats are better than others, no seat is bad, from what I can tell.) I probably would have stood on the floor if I’d realized that DC was second after a short opening set, but what can you do? All signs had pointed to him being last, including the video at the club, as well as him being marketed as the “headliner.” That said, the sound was really, really good where I was at.

#1: Heroes. The guys were having a lot of fun. DC was in great voice. A bit of banter after that. Joey had something like a sweatband on his forehead, and DC introduced him as tennis great Ivan Lendl. Not sure that Lendl was whom he intended to reference, but you get the drift. Joey seemed amused.

#2: Mr. Sensitive. The band was really into it.

#3: Some banter. This is the last gig before New Year’s. DC noted that in the interim, he and Neal were both celebrating their 26th birthdays. DC toasted himself and said, Salut.

#4: That “other song that we did on SNL.” Also known as Declaration. The only song where I could really see Kyle, given my dead-center seating. Really, really on with this song. The crowd seemed really into it.

#5: Banter. DC noted the other bands on the slate, and then said of himself and the EEB, “We’re like N’Sync, with guitars and we don’t dance. Well, Neal dances. Want to show us some moves?” [Neal gives Dave a look.] DC: “Neal’s like, why are you doing this? Because it’s your birthday.” [Neal does not dance. The band breaks out Hunger Strike. I’m happy. Twenty-something guy next to me is happy. Hell, I think we’re all happy.

#6: Timmeh! Brings out a guitar for DC. Banter breaks out. Then the radio station people come out with a giant card signed by concertgoers and a birthday cake for DC. The cake was held by Santa, aka, Andrew Cook in a Santa costume. He asks DC: What do you want for Christmas? DC: A vacation and a platinum record. He and Neal blow out the candles together. Oh, and, yes. Andrew Cook is a big ham.

#7: DC has Santa Andrew play guitar with the band for Bar Ba Sol. He seems to me to be pretty good on it. The band seems to love playing BBS—the two pairs of guitarists jamming during the guitar solo section was great, especially as one of the guitarists was, well, dressed as Santa—and you know, the audience seems pretty happy about it, too. At the end, DC announces that, whether anyone else thought it was funny, he thought it was hilarious.

#8: The crowd is yelling out for Permanent. DC checks how much time he has left. There’s only time for one more song, so he does “the single,” namely, LO. Neal plays the guitar solo on a couple of amps.

So, I think that we lost a song because of the birthday thing. And I suspect that the song that we lost is Permanent, which is a shame, because that would have been an awesome setting to hear that song. Great venue, great acoustics, and the people around me were listening intently and would not have been singing along. But…. DC enjoyed the Santa Andrew thing, and it did make for an interesting visual during Bar Ba Sol. All in all, I would have traded the birthday thing for Permanent or Lie in a heartbeat, but I won’t complain too much, as DC was in great voice and a great mood.

Natasha Bedingfield is not my cup of tea, but she was fine and definitely was working hard on that stage, which I appreciated. I liked O.A.R., which was, as the guy beside me said, a bit of a jam band.

I just wish that I could give y’all a bunch of videos, like y’all have given me…. but they had this strict no camera rule. And, you know, if I’d driven there, I might have stuck my camera in my car. But I walked there. So, I instead hid my camera in my glove. And pulled it out. And videoed the whole thing. Not the greatest visuals in the world. (I was a bit of a ways back, and there would, of course, be some negative to the fact that my camera was small enough to hide in my glove. Plus, no one has ever had cause to confuse me with Livehead16, Kristen/DavidCookRocks, or MJ) But the audio seems good to me, and well, you do get Santa Andrew on guitar, Neal on a stack of amps, and DC teasing Neal about his dance skills. Heroes is up and the rest are (in theory) uploading. Heroes took forever to upload, so I wouldn’t bet on seeing the others any time soon.

Heroes:

Happy Birthday and Bar Ba Sol (from Rodney Ho)

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