Concert Review--Nick Lachey: What's Left Of Me Tour
Last Saturday I had a chance to see Nick Lachey's What's Left of Me Tour when it came to the Boston Orpheum. I'm not a particular fan of Lachey, though I like the radio single, "What's Left of Me" and its video, and admit to having rented season one of Newlyweds just to see what the fuss is about, but I was browsing ticketmaster the day of the show and second row seats (right center) came up and who am I to turn down second row seats? I've never seen a show from the second row and I like Nick okay, so why not? I don't have pictures, so words will have to suffice.
The opening acts were Dirtie Blonde and Joanna. I have Joanna's record because I was impressed by some of her live performances I saw on YouTube, but I have to say I found Dirtie Blonde far more impressive on the concert stage, the lead singer has excellent stage presence and gritty bluesy rock voice, and they were the only act all night long that had a good instrumental mix that didn't overwhelm the vocals. I had a huge problem with Joanna's band, who were way too loud. I kind of wish I did take a picture of her outfit though, which I can only vaguely describe as a dress that looks like what I imagine a nun's pajama top would look like. Her voice is excellent but her mannerisms seem affected--she was a child star playing the role of Annie in a nationwide touring musical, I believe, and has also spent five years recording her debut album.
Before the show started, there is a kind of cheesy car multimedia system ad starring Lachey driving around and telling the sound system what to play, intercut with the "What's Left of Me" video. Nick came on wearing a suitjacket, and he obviously has a lot of experience singing in front of the crowd (90% female ages 18-35 by my estimate, full house of 3000) and worked the audience really well, playing to the Bostonites by announcing the Yankees' loss to Detroit in the playoffs. The singing was a little hard to hear sometimes because the band was overwhelming, though he seemed to be pretty on the melody of the songs on his current album, and he performed almost all the What's Left Of Me album songs except one or two. He has a lot of fun with the band rocking out on the percussion and bass and took off the suit jacket in favor of the T-shirt underneath, commenting on the hot temperature in the theater, and also encouraging the crowd to take off layers. The first half of the show was almost all WLOM album tracks, but he also sung a song ("Fall in Love Again") from his previous solo album Soul-O and joked with the crowd that it was a limited edition collector's item since the album hadn't sold very well and assured the crowd that he would fall in love again--"just not tonight." First half closed with current radio single "I Can't Hate You Anymore" and Nick went off stage to change.
After Nick changed, the second half of the show started with an acoustic set of Nick singing parts of his 98 Degrees hits, slightly changed up, followed by a Southern rock song. He then did a crowd participation piece where he took off the T-shirt to reveal a black tank top and announced he would go into the crowd to find someone to inspire him to sing the next song, "Slave," which is apparently a song he wrote that didn't make the album. The song is more sultry, R&B and very different in flavor from the pop/rock ballads on WLOM, and cameras followed Nick into the crowd as he held the hand and embraced an audience member (woman in her twenties who seemed pretty composed and played along with the teasing nature of the song by touching his muscles) throughout the song. Lachey then returned to the stage to sing a Led Zepplin cover and introduce the band before saying goodnight.
The lights remained dimmed for the canned encore, the crowd was pretty quiet and were or less waiting for Nick to come out again although there were some scattered "We Want Nick" choruses. He entered with just the piano on "Resolution" and then gradually the other band members came in and joined in. The closer, of course, was the massive radio hit "What's Left of Me," which was changed up slightly to encourage crowd singalong.
All in all it was a fun show, I had a good time dressing up and dancing to the songs, and it's pretty cool to see a show with the main attraction three feet away from me at times and looking straight in my direction.
And since I like embedding videos in every blog entry, here's one I found on Youtube of Nick's Oxygen concert, performing "Everywhere But Here":
Tags: Nick Lachey, What's Left of Me Tour, concert review
The opening acts were Dirtie Blonde and Joanna. I have Joanna's record because I was impressed by some of her live performances I saw on YouTube, but I have to say I found Dirtie Blonde far more impressive on the concert stage, the lead singer has excellent stage presence and gritty bluesy rock voice, and they were the only act all night long that had a good instrumental mix that didn't overwhelm the vocals. I had a huge problem with Joanna's band, who were way too loud. I kind of wish I did take a picture of her outfit though, which I can only vaguely describe as a dress that looks like what I imagine a nun's pajama top would look like. Her voice is excellent but her mannerisms seem affected--she was a child star playing the role of Annie in a nationwide touring musical, I believe, and has also spent five years recording her debut album.
Before the show started, there is a kind of cheesy car multimedia system ad starring Lachey driving around and telling the sound system what to play, intercut with the "What's Left of Me" video. Nick came on wearing a suitjacket, and he obviously has a lot of experience singing in front of the crowd (90% female ages 18-35 by my estimate, full house of 3000) and worked the audience really well, playing to the Bostonites by announcing the Yankees' loss to Detroit in the playoffs. The singing was a little hard to hear sometimes because the band was overwhelming, though he seemed to be pretty on the melody of the songs on his current album, and he performed almost all the What's Left Of Me album songs except one or two. He has a lot of fun with the band rocking out on the percussion and bass and took off the suit jacket in favor of the T-shirt underneath, commenting on the hot temperature in the theater, and also encouraging the crowd to take off layers. The first half of the show was almost all WLOM album tracks, but he also sung a song ("Fall in Love Again") from his previous solo album Soul-O and joked with the crowd that it was a limited edition collector's item since the album hadn't sold very well and assured the crowd that he would fall in love again--"just not tonight." First half closed with current radio single "I Can't Hate You Anymore" and Nick went off stage to change.
After Nick changed, the second half of the show started with an acoustic set of Nick singing parts of his 98 Degrees hits, slightly changed up, followed by a Southern rock song. He then did a crowd participation piece where he took off the T-shirt to reveal a black tank top and announced he would go into the crowd to find someone to inspire him to sing the next song, "Slave," which is apparently a song he wrote that didn't make the album. The song is more sultry, R&B and very different in flavor from the pop/rock ballads on WLOM, and cameras followed Nick into the crowd as he held the hand and embraced an audience member (woman in her twenties who seemed pretty composed and played along with the teasing nature of the song by touching his muscles) throughout the song. Lachey then returned to the stage to sing a Led Zepplin cover and introduce the band before saying goodnight.
The lights remained dimmed for the canned encore, the crowd was pretty quiet and were or less waiting for Nick to come out again although there were some scattered "We Want Nick" choruses. He entered with just the piano on "Resolution" and then gradually the other band members came in and joined in. The closer, of course, was the massive radio hit "What's Left of Me," which was changed up slightly to encourage crowd singalong.
All in all it was a fun show, I had a good time dressing up and dancing to the songs, and it's pretty cool to see a show with the main attraction three feet away from me at times and looking straight in my direction.
And since I like embedding videos in every blog entry, here's one I found on Youtube of Nick's Oxygen concert, performing "Everywhere But Here":
Tags: Nick Lachey, What's Left of Me Tour, concert review
posted by sw | 2:16 PM
1 Comments:
Hey lyric aka Cristal!
I enjoyed your recap. I used to be a fan of 98 degrees, and yes, I watched Newlyweds too. :P
I was surprised to read about the quality of his audience interaction, though - somehow he never came across as very charismatic to me. I guess he's better live than on TV.
Anyways, I think I'll give WLOM a listen, and maybe look for a DL of Slave. It can't hurt... I can enjoy the talents of more than one pretty singing boy. :)
xoxo, pixieglitter
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