I attended the Bruno Mars/Janelle Monae Hooligans in Wondaland tour last night and feel inspired to share some observations.
I've kinda liked Bruno's songs on the radio ever since Adam tweeted about him. Then when I was in Hawaii last year to see Adam, they were playing a lot of Bruno (his hometown so makes sense). My friend (who I brought to Adam's concert) bought me the Bruno album and I have really enjoyed it. I recommend the album: my favorite tracks are: Just The Way You Are, Our First Time, The Lazy Song, Marry You, Count On Me but I like the whole album (just like Adam's, Pink's, Adele's albums for me).
I was pretty butt-hurt when Bruno beat Adam for the Grammy and also jealous of Bruno's success and selling more albums than Adam but I've decided to let that go because I think that Bruno's success can be really good for Adam which I'll explain later. And after seeing him perform live, I cannot deny he deserves his success.
Concert was at San Francisco Bill Graham's Civic Center Auditorium-holds about 7k+ and it was all GA. Tickets were still available on ticketmaster a few weeks ago but it may have sold out by yesterday - not sure - it looked pretty full. About 4-5k people on the floor, all standing squished together and another 2-3k in balcony seating. My friend, my daughter and I got there about an hour before show and long lines already, but we were lucky to get balcony seats on the very side so side-view but close and more comfortable -woo hoo!
Audience observations: seemed about even male-female ratio, mostly 20-40 but some younger and older and a few families too. Lots of young men were wearing the type of hat Bruno often wears. This year I've seen Janet Jackson, Ke$sha, Scissor Sisters live and all 3 of those performers had a strong gay male presence in the audience - didn't really notice them for Bruno which I found interesting. Didn't notice it when I saw Prince recently either. Does this support some people's theory that many gay males prefer female singers? I'm generalizing here obviously - just wondering.............
First opener: Mayer Hawthorn - from Detroit. Young band for such an old soul/Motown sound - wow they're cool I like them! Googled him - young guy with impressive music credentials - might have to find his music online.....
Janelle Monae: I was so excited to see her and then so disappointed. She looked really good - same outfit I've seen her in on TV every time: black pants, white shirt, skinny black tie. Huge band - 4 strings, 3 horns and more and a few back-up singers. Her fancy footwork dancing that I've seen before was cool but got repetitive. Her voice (I think it was good) was drowned out by the band and all the songs sounded pretty much alike, except her cover of Smile - which she had less musicians on so you could hear her voice but she tried to do too much with the song - lots of high voice/low voice/riffing but the changes in her key were too abrupt or something - I dunno - not an expert. She was very quirky - was painted a picture of (I think) a woman's behind while singing at one point then she laid down on the stage and sang for a while (of course no one on the floor could see her). Sadly my friend sitting right next to me texted "Make Her Stop" and showed it to me.
While they cleared Janelle and set-up Bruno, they played a very cool mix of old and new music - Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, some unknown rap, even Franki Valli at one point - me likey the variety.
Bruno: Wow - he started off strong and kept the momentum going - a big surprise! After the drowning out of Janelle, I was worried but Bruno's music was just right - his voice really stood out and he had great stage presence (even though he seems to be a pretty short man). He was funny, natural, comfortable with the audience and seemed truly happy and humble.
He also had a larger band - several horns plus a standard 4 piece band and just one back-up singer who also did some rap sections on some songs (like Billionaire and Nuttin on You which aren't actually songs from his album but collabs). No wonder we saw about 8-10 buses outside - with so many band members between these guys!
Why I like him and think his success is good for Adam: Like Adam, he is a male singer fusing old with new sound successfully. His songs sound current but have a LOT of very retro vibe. He is also rather hard to pinpoint genre-wise: pop, rap, R&B, Hawaiian, Reggae, rock, doo-wop, acapella, it was all sampled last night. I really like the fact that Adam can sing a variety of styles and would like him to continue that - with Bruno's success (and seemingly with a younger crowd) doing a similar type of thing, I hope that can keep the door open for Adam to continue mixing it up, and giving us a variety of styles of music.
Bruno's success also means to me that audiences want to hear a performer who can actually sing live. And Bruno did - quite effortlessly and beautifully. He also played a very impressive guitar and ukelele and did some rather fancy dancing - similar to what Janelle Monae does but not quite as energetic with his feet.
He performed every song from his album (maybe only missed 1 or 2) plus the 2 collabs I mentioned above and even added a little barbershop quartet acapella song which the audience loved too. He was on stage about an hour and a half. He seems to sweat more than Adam and had a rag handy (which surprised me since he must be used to humidity coming from Hawaii). His banter seemed comfortable, maybe only slightly more than Adam does and he also did a little audience participation on his last song like Adam. Maybe this is common but I haven't seen it a lot - or maybe Bruno has been watching Glamnation DVD's
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Bruno was really fun, loved his voice, the songs were all great live, I danced and sang along. I will see him again his next tour - and I hope both he and Adam continue to have great success but next time Adam gets to win the Grammy please.
What is this song? What band?
and maybe some others too, if you are interested.
