3girls Wilkes-Barre Idols and LiMBO Show Recap

Hi, everyone.  I’ve been lurking since mid-spring, but rarely ever felt moved to post.  However, I thought I should share my take on the Closing Night of the AI5 tour.  I’ll just give the highlights, since you all know the basics.  First, a little disclosure: I’m a Chris fan, big time.  I’ve enjoyed many of the Idols, and I have hate for none.  But for me, Chris has a terrific voice, he’s sexy, with great stage presence, I like his genre, he’s sexy, I loved his family-guy back story, and did I mention I think he’s hot?  Ok, so now you know where I’m coming from.

DH and I found our seats and I was thrilled to learn they were better than I’d hoped – bang in the center, eighth row.  I spent some time crowd watching, because we got there early.  So many senior citizens in the upper sections!  I wondered if anyone would get them on their feet during the show.  (Answer: No.)  There was a chubby kid, maybe 15, with a brush cut and black t-shirt sitting right in front of me.  I figured we’d be a pair of synchronized banging heads for Chris’ set.  He seemed to be alone, though later a middle aged woman sat next to him.  At that age, he probably would have treated her like a stranger either way, so no way to tell if she was his mother.  Next to him was a gaggle of classic Soul Patrollers – all women of a certain age (ok, about 10 years older than me!), wearing their SP tees, and giddier than third graders on nitrous oxide.  I wondered if they would ever sit down during the show. (Answer: No.)  Behind me, and a few seats to the right were a no-!
question-about-it gay couple.  One looked precisely like Clay Fakin will when he’s 50.  I wondered who the Fakins were there to see.  (Answer: Elliott.)  Otherwise, the crowd was pretty unremarkable.

As for the show:

Mandisa sang  If I Was Your Woman to the band’s drummer, whom she called out to the front for the honor.  She made a big deal of finally declaring her feelings for him at this, the last night.  I wanted to believe it was real, but I just couldn’t do it.  She looked comfortable and sounded strong.

Ace’s hair looked greasy, as if he had been borrowing Mandisa’s hair products – not good for a white boy!  Hey Ace, try whatever Bucky’s using, I would have shouted, but this being the last night and all, I held my tongue.  Ace sang happy birthday to his mom, because Sunday was her birthday.  He got all choked up in the middle, and this I believed was real.  Ace is adorable and sincere, and he was entertaining, and he even got a little squee out of me when he peeled off his jacket.  The girl sitting 3 down from me caught Ace’s beanie, and wore it the rest of the night.

Not much to say about Lisa’s set, except Buzz in front of me turned out to be her biggest fan!  His camera never left her for a second.  I wonder if his buddies know.  The deficiencies in her stage persona were most obvious when she performed with Paris, who is an almost frighteningly seasoned performer (like those child beauty pageant contestants), but still fun to watch on stage.  I concur with everyone else’s sense that her singing to booty shaking ratio needs adjustment.

Kellie’s set was meh, but her jeans were painted on, much to my husband’s delight.  If some of you think she gained weight, all I can say is, it went the right places.  Later, when Kat invited her back on stage, and during the group numbers, she was fun and goofy.

Bucky!  Without a doubt, the biggest surprise of the concert for me was how much I enjoyed his set.  I never thought much of him on tv, but he had plenty of stage presence, sang well, and seemed to be having a great time.  As I watched him, I thought, Bucky is the kind of guy that in high school, your parents swore you were dating just to irritate them.  He’s not that great looking, he’s clearly going nowhere in life (this is the imaginary high school Bucky, bear in mind), and he MUMBLES!!!  But what you can’t tell your parents to justify yourself is that – and this came to me totally out of the blue – he’s a great kisser. Ok, totally odd idea.  Take potshots if you will.  Point being, Bucky’s set was fun, and he had a loose-limbed confidence I had not expected.  Ohh, and I almost forgot!  Bucky invited Chris up to sing with him for a tiny bit.  Chris had been sitting in the front row, with a beanie and a hoodie on, but with a live mic ready to go.  When I recognized his voice, I shrieked like I had been electrocuted, but in a good way, and so did many, many, many others.  There was a huge amount of cameo-ing and goofing on each other throughout the evening.

The crew played a practical joke on Chris by taping his mic stand in place for his first number.  Chris’s set was excellent, naturally, though even he could not get the folks in the upper levels on their feet.  (Neither did Taylor, not much.)   When he sang that line in Whole Lotta Love about wanting to be my back door man, I let out a big fangirl shriek to let him know it was ok with me.  The SP gals in front of me all turned around grinning.  Was I really that loud?  One gave me a high five and said, “We all feel that way, honey.”

E looked natty in a gray tee that said “Soul” on the chest, though he looked as if he’d lost weight he didn’t need to lose.  And by his second number, he was drenched in sweat.  He sounded lovely and smooth, and even his teeth looked better than I had remembered.  Mr. and Mr. Fakin, Sr. were utterly transfixed.

Time to weigh in on the Great Breast Debate.  They are Kat’s, period.  They move and shake and sit like real ones.  It is entirely possible for natural, young breasts to look like hers do in that green shirt, given the right support, which she clearly had.  In fact, their motion was so natural that I spent Kat’s entire set in terror of wardrobe malfunction.  But she sang great, and I blame myself for not being able to focus on it.  I probably wasn’t the only distracted one.  Kat invited Kellie and Paris up from the front row to join her during Think.  (I think it was Think.)  So much for her being a prima donna.  They didn’t have microphones, they all looked happy up there together, and it didn’t feel staged at all.

Taylor was a treat.  I don’t know if he’s thinner, but he’s absolutely more agile than I remember him being on the show.  His dancing did always look drunk-uncle-ish to me on tv, but last night, he was graceful and soulful and energetic.  Justin Timberlake could learn a thing or two.  Also, he swung that mic stand around with such effortless flair, Chris should have been weeping backstage.  (I always wanted Chris to learn how to move the mic stand fluidly or else put the damn thing down.) Taylor was on fire, and the pinnacle of the show, even for me.

The close of the show featured all the crew coming onstage to shoot everyone with silly string, all the girls wearing giant sneaker-shaped slippers, and several crew members in giant obese ballerina costumes.  It was goofy and good natured and you couldn’t help but feel the warmth and community among everyone up there.  I can’t imagine it’s like that every year. Warm fuzzies and frozen pop tarts.  What more can America ask for?

LiMBO – I’ll leave that recapping to the cognoscenti.  Here’s what I’ll say.  That band is tight like a drum corps, and supple like a jam band.  They are great without Taylor, and transcendent with him.  At one point, the guitarist looks into the audience and says with a wicked, cocky smile, “So, you think Taylor will use us as his band someday?”  And the crowd roared back.   Taylor sang several numbers; for me the highlight was Eric Clapton’s Forever Man.  Chris and Ace came out for a duet, and it was fun to see them in an intimate setting.  Before they started, Chris warned the crowd, “This has the potential to really suck…”  It didn’t suck, but it was not that hot.  Pitchy, Randy would say.

The LiMBO show had the real energy of listening to good live music, which made me realize that I had been missing exactly that energy from the carefully stage-managed AI production.  Still and all, a great night, well worth the long drive from Baltimore.