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Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Well I am very tired and slightly ill today (have you passed your illness onto me Mr Dust?!) but I know you are all just dying to read about Mr. William Young in concert at Birmingham's NEC last night and I have already started to forget the witty things I was going to write so I better get on it. I blame my piano teacher - he told me (in a nicer way than this) that I had a crap phrasing. Sniffle.
The Support Acts:
First up was two rather not very impressive support acts. The better of the two was first up - Shelly Poole who used to be the Attic in Alisha's Attic. But i felt sorry for her cos no-one even noticed that she came on stage, and to be honest I don't think she was noticed when she was singing either. But I found her songs quite pleasant and was well chuffed when she sang AA song The Incidentals. There was nothing wrong per se with second act Anna Krantz (who i mistakenly called Anna Kuntz) - but she was a bit similar to Shelly and I was ready for William by that point...
MP3: Shelly Poole - Hard Time For The Dreamer
MP3: Anna Krantz - Sweeter Devotion
The Main Show:
So then it was time for William to take the stage. While Bernice and I were waiting (and the other surrounding bumboys and housewives) we flicked through the actually quite lovely tour programme with free cut out doll of Will in his pants that you can dress (and of course undress when you are drunk which I would never consider doing!). Marvelous. Plus he does look exceedingly handsome on the cover and I vowed to sit in the exact same pose in all my meetings this week.
But then the lights went down and young William took to the stage in the gayest looking airline pilot's outfit EVER! Cue lots of cock pit jokes from surrounding gays. Starting off with Keep On was a good choice - it sounds utterly amazing live and all the crowd were on their feet. I noticed it straight away and was pleased to see that throughout the show, the choreography was absolutely amazing. The team of 8 dancers really gave it their all and William matched them step for step on quite a few of the complicated moves. And it wasn't just choreography either - it had been carefully thought out so that the dance moves made sense and synchronised with the lyrics of the song and also complemented the costumes. All in all that alone made for a visually stunning experience, much like Kylie's Showgirl.
But the show was much more than that - there were some really great interpretations of his best known singles - All Time Love saw William as a doll on a music box surrounded by two ballerinas and the song has never sounded better. Songs that should have been released as singles (Ain't Such A Bad Place and Love The One You're With) turned the place into a real party atmosphere with great lighting and a stage set that was fairly theatrical but not distracting for the audience.
Some of the ballads were a bit meandering and there were the obligatory soul covers that show off William's voice but ultimately are a bit boring. And a five minute bongo solo was about 4 minutes too long... Of course the biggest cheers were saved for Leave Right Now, which sounded great and was a massive singalong a la Robbie's Angels. Plus at that point of the show William was wearing his favourite outfit - an understated trousers, shirt and sweater combo that really showed off his arse ;) Achievable fashion in pop is always very important - i think that may have been Phixx's downfall :(
The encore was a terrific twofer of what i humbly consider two of the greatest pop songs of the past five years - a funky version of Your Game and an absolutely spine tingling version (those opening drum beats have never sounded better!) of Switch It On, where William and the dancers gave it there all. An amazing finish to what proved to be a most entertaining, well thought out, theatrical show :)
MP3: Will Young - Ain't Such A Bad Place
MP3: Will Young - Your Game gospel version
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