Detroit, MI AI Live! Show – Vagabond’s Recap
Vagabond’s got some great pictures…make sure to check them out!Â
Ok this is gonna be long so bear with me! (grins)
The Detroit concert was a blast. I called in sick to work *cough, cough* – but srsly did go to the doc that am and funnily enough I really WAS sick. Not too sick to go down to the Joe early to stalk buses. After a couple wrong turns (construction) finally found the parking garage and made it outside by around 12:30. There was a nice crowd there and a lot of Jason fans, we kind of lined up behind the barriers and waited.
A great shout went up as the buses finally pulled up around 2 pm.The idols started coming out soon afterward – Brooke first (she was on vocal rest), then Kristy Lee, Chikeize, David A., David C., and Syesha (also on vocal rest). They took their time coming down the line, taking photos with the fans, signing things. I was particularly impressed with Chikeize, he was amazingly sweet. Someone gave him a gift and he was about falling over in excitement. He is warm and genuine, you can pick that up from him the minute you meet him.
Wasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t too interested in autographs nor in being in the photos with the idols but I did get a few nice photos of each of them. David Cook was in an uber-hurry and didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t stop to pose for photos, just kind of a drive-by-signing kind of guy. Someone gave him a pirate puppet and he did seem pretty impressed by it, using it to hold his gift bags. Archie is adorable and still seems like he canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t believe this is all happening to him. Brooke is teeny tiny, Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ll bet her waist is about as big around as my arm. LOL
Click on the thumbnails for larger pics!
More Recap After the JUMP…
So anyway we were still waiting and hoping for Jason to come out, but as time went by it seemed less and less likely. Why was Detroit his media stop? RATZ. About a half hour after everyone else had gone back inside, Michael Johns came out. What a sweet guy he was. I thanked him for coming out and he looked at me with a surprised expression, like no one had ever said that to him! LOL He grinned and said à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“This part is easy!à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ He was teasing some of the Jason fans – à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“So youà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re here for Castro, eh? Thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s too bad.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ LOL Loved his accent. After he left we lingered around the area some more, hoping for Jasonnn. Weà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢d met everyone but him, Carly and Ramiele. As 4 pm rolled around we knew we wouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t see him as that was the start time for the meet and greets. A group of Jason fans walked down the Detroit River Walk to the Renaissance Center and had an early dinner together. Then back to the arena for the concert!
I was really happy that they let me bring in my good camera, I just wish I had brought my bigger lens. My sister and her friend met me at the venue. Our seats were in the 23rd row on the floor stage left. It was exciting when the Pop Tarts left and the house lights dimmedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦..and here came Chikeize! He brought the crowd to ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s feet immediately. After his first song he said that Detroit had shown him the most love of any city so far on tour, which made me happy as heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s such a sweet guy. Then he said he was going to make a wardrobe adjustment – took off his jacket – and donned a Red Wings Jersey! Well that made Hockey Town pretty darned crazy – lots and lots of cheers for that!!!! His set was a lot of fun, I really liked him.
Rami was next and so bubbly and cute. I enjoyed her set as well, although the crowd was a little more subdued. She looked like she was having a blast up there!
Now ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s that sweet Aussie, Michael Johns – the crowd was going WILD! He is really, really awesome. I gained a whole new respect for him in Detroit, after seeing him outside in the afternoon and watching his set. Of course We Will Rock You and and We Are The Champions went over well in the Joe Louis Arena where the Red Wings had just won the Stanley Cup! Those are songs played during every hockey game there! He got such a great reception.
Next up Kristy Lee Cook. She asked the crowd to yell really loud, said that because of their ear pieces that they canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t hear unless the crowd is super, super loud. So she got everyone screaminà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ and cheerinà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢. Smart girl! LOL Her set was good, sheà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s got a lot of energy on stage.
Carly came on stage, fan blowing her hair, singing like a powerhouse. What a little dynamo she is. Love it when she smiles, she is truly gorgeous. And her voice filled the arena. Wow! Sheà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s so much fun to watch in concert, and I loved every one of her songs.
Seemed like the sets just fly by so fast! Brookeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Let It Be was amazing. I really like her, in fact am going to go in search of Songs from the Attic later on today. Her lighting is terrible for photos except a little during the Feist song. Crowd was snapping their fingers right along with Brooke. Her smile is completely infectious! Yellow was beautiful as well.
Now time for the Cheezy Group Number – Pride. This seems like a Michael Johns showcase, in fact they even introduce him by name which they donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t do for any of the others. Weird. But he knocks it out of the park, and the kids sound great together.
Intermission with ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s interminably long lines for the ladies room. Glad I didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have to brave that! Sheesh. And then some silly Pop Tarts blasting a few tshirts into the stands, a Guitar Hero competition, and two really cute little kids having an air guitar competition. An adorable four year old won that with a lot of crowd approval! The new guitar hero commercial is a hoot with all the Idols dressed in their 60à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s garb, and Jasonnn playing the drums! Whoop! (fangirly part of me emerges!)
He and Brooke didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t look all that different but David Archuleta is hysterical!! That commercial is a must see.
Ahà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦now ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s time for MY Idol to come onstage! LOL!! In the dark I can see him settling onto his stool, plugging in the ukuleleà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦.and WOW – ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s JASON! Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m so frigginà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ happy right now. I wasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t in my seat when he came on as I was schmoozing security into letting me run up and take a couple photos from thiscloseup! She agreed that I could take two! Squeeeee! So as he launched into Somewhere Over the Rainbow I got to go rightuptothestage and take pics. My mouth was probably hanging open in awe but I didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t care. Ohhhhhh the pritteeee! Security watched and made sure it was only two which I found pretty amusing. Gawd is he ever adorable close up and that voice is so pure and beautiful. I never did go back to my seat, just kind of stood in the aisle in awe. Loved Crazy and so did the crowd! Everyone sang along with Jason for all his songs. That hadnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t happened with any of the other performers. The crowd truly did show Jason a lot of love in Detroit! Daydream made me smile – then all too soon he was gone. Far, far too quickly. Jason, come back, weà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re not through listening to you sing yet!!!!!!
Syesha next – the girl can sing and she performs well – just not my style. The thing I noticed the most about her was her muscle definition – this girl does some workinà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ out and it shows! Srsly! So she gets a nice reception from the crowd, then as she starts to introduce David A. the screeching level rises to new decibels! All the little tweens are screaming their heads off, ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s deafening!
Lots of smoke as Archie rises up from the stage singing Angels. His voice is beautiful and pure. Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s easy to forget how young he is! His Stand By Me was amazing and I loved the longer bit of Beautiful Girls thrown in. My fave from him was Apologize – he should record that kind of song, ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s just perfect for him and his albums will fly off the shelves. I quite enjoyed little Davidà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s set.
Hard to believe the concert is almost over! Cookie appears to thunderous applause. He too does an amazing set. I am really glad he won American Idol – he truly will do a great job representinà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ that title. Lots and lots of energy on stage, heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s already a fantastic performer and will only get better with time. He brings out a video camera and has the house lights brought up to film the audience screaming their heads off. How loud was that???? LOL He also pulls out his ear piece so he can hear the noise.
Thereà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s quite a disconnect to go from My Hero, Hello, Billie Jean, etcà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦to the ending group song à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Please Donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t Stop the Musicà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ . They just donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t fit together! But thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s okay because the song is all kinds of Idol buffoonery and fun! They all camp it up big time during the number – David Cook and Michael Johns get their freak on with a cheezy little dance that cracks Ramiele up so much she canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t even sing! Jason and Kristy Lee do a little sheriff routine at the end where she points at him and he holds his hands up in surrender which is pretty darned adorable. Did I say I love Jason? LOL Then all too soon they are parading around and waving and the crowd and leaving! Oh noooooooo – is it over already?????????? How can this be????
So we walk outside and decide to go back to where the busses were. I still want to meet Jason! One look at the hordes of people there made us change our minds about waiting around though. The only way to have had a good place in that line would have been to leave as soon as Jason was done singing and hustle back there. Must have been hundreds of fans waiting. I sighed in disappointment and headed back to the parking garage to go home. Thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s when I realized I simply had no idea where my car was. Guess you are supposed to pay attention when you park but I didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t, I was too excited! Duhhhh.
I did find it though and all was well.
Overall an awesome experience! A little difficult explaining the sunburn at work the next day after calling off – I just said I was playing with the dogs in the backyardà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦(grins).
And thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s all from meà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦kind of long and blabby but thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s who I am. Srsly. Just sayinà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢.
Hope it wasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t too boring. I flurved the whole day with the exception of no Jason by the busses. But Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ll get to meet him one of these days. Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s going to have a nice career and play sweet venues where he will have time to talk with fans and take photos and all kinds of stuff. I canà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t wait!!! Until thenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦peace.
PS Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ll be posting more photos later to flickrà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦..my two special ones of Jasonnn are up there now which I am very proud of. The rest will be not so great as they were further away. But if you are interested you can check back for them. Thanks again to MJ for linking out front and for using my photo of David A. on the blog! Photos!
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37 Responses to “Detroit, MI AI Live! Show – Vagabond’s Recap”
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i totally agree with you elle- this is all new to him and a little overwhelming. His personality is more subdued.
you are right about MJ, DA and chikezie etc. but all the idols are great this year and I bet if i met DC one on one he would be very charming.
Elle,
Where did you meet him- did you stand in line before the concert? Lucky you.
This crew–all of them–are making a point of meeting fans before and after the show in a big way. There are many more opportunities to meet your favorites this year than in year’s past.
As word has gotten out that the Idols are pretty much guaranteed to come out and meet the fans, the fans have been showing up in droves. There are tons of people to get through. In Chicago, the line was 3 deep all along the length of the parking lot fence. And it was hot as hell out there.
I have to say I’m impressed with this crew’s efforts to connect with their fans informally. Don’t forget–they’ve also got those formal meet and greets before and after the show. That’s a lot of autograph signing right there.
These M&G’s have to be a little stressful for all of them, because one off moment or a fan whose expectations aren’t met, and they get badmouthed all over the internet. To be honest, I don’t pay much attention to the nit-picky “so-and-so didn’t smile at me…so-and-so didn’t make eye contact–so-and-so didn’t spend enough time with me” stories.
Just the fact that they are willing to greet the fans at all when they could be do other things…like say oh..NAPPING…is enough for me.
Kind of seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t sort of situation. Typically, when DC does press in a city, he struggles to make it out to the buses before the show, because typically, press is done before going out to the buses. But it sounds like he couldn’t make it to the buses after the show, because of needing to fly to LA. So, he probably finagled a short amount of time to do some bus time before press.
Which garnered him a pirate puppet. Which was pretty funny. Thumbs up to whoever got him the puppet.
As an aside, not to take anything away from any of the Idols who have been giving tons of time to the bus lines. Given that the bus signings are not officially required, the fact that the Idols are giving so much of their time when they could be doing other things, or napping, or whatever, is awesome.
Thanks for your thoughts mj- and you are right this group in particular this year are all very nice and love their fans. I especiall love everybody this season. They ALL do make a huge effort for them and that is what impresses me- how long, Jason, Michael, DA etc take with the fans. I know they all really appreciate us.
The fans do come in droves and i am sure that it is quite overwhelming when you step off of a bus and see all those fans throwing things at you to sign etc.
I know that DC has had to say some things to fans who push and throw things in his face. Good for him-that is just NOT cool.
I love DC so much that I dont pay much attention to the nit pickyness either because I would probably never go stand in a bus line to meet them, but I just hope that he didnt get a bad taste in his mouth from some of the unpleasant happenings at past venues. Do you all know what I mean? I hope it hasnt made him more cautious or hesitant to come see all of his fans- and I know that he would do it no matter what- tired or not. I hope to see more fan videos and interations for the rest of the tour especially with DC- those are my favorites.
my setiments exactly folkfan and i never meant to start anything this big- let just say I love all the idols and especially DC- my hero!
I enjoyed the recap, vagabond!
Jason looks like he’s eating ice cream.
Vags!!! Wonderful…and you know why? Well among other things, you gave props to Chikezie AND took his picture. I don’t know if I can stand it! I take it as a personal gift to me, so “THANK YOU!”
OK…what incident in Chicago? A couple of you mention past incidents in reference to David C. and fan interaction. What happened?
Whatever is was, David’s still cool — not to worry. He’s just pressed for time and the girls are all giggly and annoying and he can’t let it show that they are gettin’ on his last nerve.
Hi there…..I completely 100 percent agree with everything MJ said. All the idols were super super nice to the fans when I saw them in Detroit. DC was fast but he also had a bajillion other things to get done. He was still smiling, and laughing, and signing everything people were sticking under his nose! I just think it’s amazing that they even come out there in the first place.
We were pretty lucky in Detroit because the number of people out there pre-show was not huge at all. After the show – that was another story – it was crazy!! By the time we left the venue the crowd was so big it was probably five or six people deep and lined actually down the street. Now you gotta give them props for coming out and dealing with a huge group of people like that.
Thanks to everyone who read my recap, I’m flattered you liked. it. If you want to send me to more shows I’ll write more! LOL!!
Have a great weekend everyone.
I have tried posting pictures but it’s not working.
Can someone help me?
Thanks!
2nd attempt!
Loved your recap, Vagabond! I see we shared many similar opinions. I also loved Jason’s set, but it was the shortest of the show. He should have had 4 songs! Regarding your comment about David A., for me this was the highlight of the show. I didn’t expect Archie to sound so good and look so confident. WOW! This was probably the longest standing ovation of the night.
Your review sounded more like a REAL person. Mine sound like a journalist critic. LOL. Thank you for sharing and thanks for the photos!