I had to attend to RL yesterday and had to play catch-up overnight and this morning.
I am in absolute awe and jumping for joy and delighted and all kinds of happy about how Adam and his band sounded yesterday and at what happened there in Zell am See and I was reading through this thread as quickly as I could and I have to tell you, in the middle there are about 10 pages, where I thought you must have been listening to a different concert….but towards the end of the thread, I was much more in sync with what I read there. So here is are my impressions:
Adam was amazing! He sounded beautiful and strong, then again gentle and emphatic, he sang with attitude and then again with introspective, he sang high, he sang low, he belted, he sang lyrically, he sang with vocals that projected every letter and every end-syllable in one song and then slurred the vocals in the next. He projected and he pulled back to a whimper….he did exactly what he told them in the afternoon that he would do: showcase the songs and the vocals.
There is not a singer out there that could do what Adam did in those 30 minutes, in variety and complexity and in delivery of vocals. He did so, and still was smart about not using his upper register too much and he limited the belting. Adam just has so many different nuances at his disposal that he can drop one or two elements out of his game plan and is still superior to anyone else out there.
I don’t know the altitude where they were, but Zell am See is at 800 meters and obviously, they were at a ski station, presumably up from there for the interviews. Winter mountain air + altitude in the morning, then indoor heat and smoke in the evening, that is murder on the vocal cords. He had to do that right after an 11 hour dry air treatment courtesy of Lufthansa. He had to deal with climate change and with time zone change too. If that spa that they gave him had anything to help him out, I hope it had a steam bath.
Anyhow, if this is the situation you are in, your vocals are like a cold muscle before warm-up. Sudden jerks are not a good thing, but that is what belting requires. I am glad he transposed some things down and I am glad he limited the belting.
He showcased more than anybody possibly could take in in one setting, with or without it.
I don’t see this audience as disinterested at all. I think they did not know Adam, so it was new to them and they had to be won over. Adam did that. He did not have them at Fever, I agree, but by BTIKM people were startled at the variety and they started listening. People here wrote that the audience were not moving. What? BTIKM, OOL, WWFM….why would they?…That would be like Paula bopping to Mama, I killed a man…..(where they copied her visual of bopping to the MJ song into his singing of the Queen song). The audience was listening and they were applauding at the end of the songs. Yes, they were not a drunk party crowd who has lost awareness of the fact that they were on camera, if that is what you consider uptight. But I think they were totally enjoying Adam more and more with every song and OOL imo was the turning point.
This was a group who had just listened to Racoon, and while I did not hear that, everybody reported here that they liked them, but that their songs sounded one like the other, so it got boring after a few songs. Can you imagine going from this to Adam’s variety showcase? But of course it takes a few songs to realize that. And finally, with Trespassing, Adam blew the roof off the place.
OMG, am I in love with this song!!!!!!!! I don’t even know where to start. I’ll never end this post, if I say more. There will be more occasions to do the flailing about this song, so I’ll just stop here.
A few final words about the band: Kevin, Kevin, Kevin!!!!
He had me from the first staccato sequence in Fever. Yes, that is how this needs to be played. He played and sounded great! He lead the group, he was in touch with Adam, he played with sovereignty and confidence and his singing of the harmonies in BTIKM was beautiful. This is not easy to do at all. Isaac was in sync with Kevin. The weakest link was Tommy, imo. And it is mostly a bit of confidence. He was behind and dragging on quite a few places and his right hand stroke was hesitant. So he will need to stretch himself a bit. But overall the band sounded great, certainly promising.
I think when comparing sound, this Snowcase should be compared to the acoustic sets we have from FYE, like the VH1 set where he had keys, guitar and drums and not so much to the acoustic performances that Adam did with only one instrumentalist (i.e. the WWFM at radio Energy with Monte). I think that such ‘Quartett’ - arrangements are actually quite challenging to do, but also very interesting, because you really get to ‘meet’ every musician in their own personal style and yet the whole thing needs to come together as a whole without backing track to do the filler part for you. They did a wonderful job.
And did I say, I love, love, love Trespassing and I will love, love, love this album!
What a great little concert this was.
Which sounds like it's gonna be awesome!
