Bublé That Funky Music

Monday night, out of the blue, my mother called me to offer me a free concert ticket for the following evening -- Michael Bublé. Now, I very rarely go to concerts, so it doesn't mean much when I say this isn't a concert ticket I probably would have bought for myself. But the chance to go for free with some of my family? Sure.

I actually do like "Big Band" and "Standards" music. (Lots of Star Trek fans were scratching their heads a bit when they did the whole Vic Fontaine thing during the last season-and-a-half of Deep Space Nine, but I was digging it.) I even have a couple of Michael Bublé's CDs, though not the new one he's actually on this tour to promote. I expected to have a good time.

It was actually had a great time. It even started with the opening act -- a tradition that's one of the many reasons I don't tend to go to many concerts. This opening act was fantastic, an a cappella group called Naturally 7. I've listened to quite a lot of a cappella music from professional artists, obscure college bootlegs, and more; this group was one of the best I've ever heard. They had a great beat-boxer, lots of very cool instrument impersonation, great arrangements, powerful lead singers, and the deepest (and strongest) bass singer I've ever heard. I would have happily enjoyed just hearing them perform for the entire evening.

But Michael Bublé did indeed come on, and gave a fantastic show. He rolled through many of the songs he's known for at a breakneck pace, his band sometimes starting new songs so quickly that musicians were rushing to change instruments while others in the band were still playing the final notes of the previous song. He did songs of all styles, from Tony Bennett to Nina Simone, Michael Jackson to the Beatles. He headed out into the audience for a few numbers. And impressively, he finished the last verse of his final song without a microphone; a hushed and stunned audience in the Pepsi Center could hear every word clearly.

Of course, there were also a lot of the concert tropes that generally keep me from attending them -- getting the audience to sing phrases of the songs instead of him (it's you I came to listen to!), or that particular Denver tradition of remarking about the altitude (we can see you're working harder than you're used to; I for one will be more impressed if you just tough it out without comment). But these things were far outweighed by the quality of the music throughout the evening.

This style of music may not be up most people's alleys, but if it suits you, you might want to look into seeing Michael Bublé if his tour brings him to your city. Knowing what I know now, I quite likely would have bought the ticket myself, and found it totally worth the money.