Kris Allen!

After my illness and Bali trip, I'm finally able to settle down and do this Kris Allen concert review :) I'm still ill, but what the heck, I figured I might as well get this entry done first thing in the morning today.

Has it been one whole week since the concert?? It was held last Wednesday at Zirca club but it seems like only a couple of days ago. Everytime after I attend a concert, the day and memories actually last for a few months, several months if the artiste is one of my favourites. Is this why I keep allowing myself to suck it up and hang out in moshpits to get that once-in-a-lifetime concert experience, even if I AM getting a lil too old? Even if I need a day or so after to recuperate having been totally exhausted the night before?

Let's get back to the subject. Kris Allen. My favouritism for Kris started since watching American Idol last year (duh!). When he was in the top 13, I really started rooting for him. I guess because in a lot of ways, he reminded me so much of Jason Mraz, plus, it made me mad that people kept brushing him off as like, the person very likely to get eliminated every week. So I was rooting for the underdog. But a talented underdog in my opinion. A REAL MUSICIAN, who was so unassuming, and looked very cute on camera. My weekly guilty pleasure was watching him perform on TV. Have you ever just  watched Kris's face onscreen when he's performing? The expressions he emote are so subtle yet endearing. I've never cared to notice such a quality in a performer before till Kris came along.

When he performs, it's like he's saying in his body language, 'This is how I interpret the song, just hear me out as I bashfully let you hear me sing and save your comments till I'm finished.' How not to like a guy like that you tell me? :D In the first place, I already have a thing for musicians. Then you make him out to be a younger, humbler and cuter version of Mraz. Plus, he's a Christian and married to his longtime girlfriend. Hello? Isn't he like, the ideal guy out there?  His whole persona had me fall hard for him and he pretty much filled the place of my New Favourite Artiste. I digged his version of Heartless on AI and LOVE the song No Boundaries on the radio. Everytime I hear it, I smile, cuz I think of all that Kris Allen stands for and how he ended up being the winner. Not only is he inspiring, but the song is too. I can't imagine anyone else singing it. I also can't and don't want to remember Adam Lambert singing it. lol.

So anyway, after he won AI and did the tour, he got down to working on his album. In the meantime, I never got tired to listening to No Boundaries everytime it came on. :D When he released his first single Live Like We're Dying, I was, get this, rellly disappointed. I thought he was trying to sound like the band The Script or something. It didn't sound like Kris at all. I later found out it was written by The Fray so it was a cover of a Fray song? So that explains why. I wanted to wait for more of Kris's singles to be released to get an idea of his album. No other song was released. So when it was announced his album was finished and onsale, I didn't bother buying it. I felt pretty bummed and unethusiastic about the musical direction of it. I'm such a bad fan huh? I had also went on his Myspace to check out other songs and I was quite horrified with how Heartless sounded like on the album. Too R n B-ish and not soulful and personalized anymore. Anyway, another friend of mine who is apparently a fan of Kris's too said till I met up with her last week, she didn't even know he had already released an album after winning AI. We both agreed the publicity for his album leave much to be desired for (Singapore Sony Music Group, do you hear that??). My friend said she only had songs from his debut album pre-idol and promised to send them my way asap :)))

Speaking of publicity, Kris's gig was only announced like what, 2 weeks prior to the actual date? Only after I had just purchased my Paramore concert tickets. With money a large part of which I had borrowed from my brother. So I was like ... ... ... ... ... after I heard about Kris's gig. I entered all sorts of contests to win tickets: Starworld, Sony and 987fm. I had no idea when the Starworld one would end so I sent in a few sms entries every single day and crossed my fingers. I know tickets are incredibly hard to win through contests but it doesn't hurt to try. That's how I've been able to win such awesome tickets, albums and backstage passes in the past. But that's for another blog entry. All my efforts and still nothing was reaping.

The day before the concert, I was in full contest alert. Because I had heard from the radio stations that he was going to be visiting in the afternoon and that they may give out tickets. His interviews were fun, he has such a deep (sexy?) speaking voice and the stations played all 3 of his songs. That's when the song LLWD clicked with me. Kris chose to sing that song because it is inspiring. The lyrics reeks of energy and positivity. So why can't his fans appreciate that just like they did with No Boundaries? I went to read up his Wiki page (surprise surprise, I never did before) and learned it seems singing was what he always wanted to do. It made me yearn all the more to see Kris perform. So then at night, I was fooling around on Twitter and I came across this person's profile just 4 minutes after he tweeted he will give a ticket away to the first person to tell him the names of Kris Allen's band members. So what did I do? I immediately clicked on this webpage I had bookmarked for a similar occasion like this! I had actually anticipated the Kris Allen Band page to be asking the same thing because they had did this in Malaysia. I then tweeted my reply to that person and held my breath. In about 5 minutes, he (Anthony) replied to congratulate me and to tell me the details!! Is that not epic or what?? If you asked me whether I actually trusted such a kind random stranger like this, I would say 101% yes. why? Because I have come across people like him a couple of times before. But, those encounters will be saved to be recounted in another blog entry eh.

So the next day arrived, I spent my morning blasting Kris's album on Myspace, trying to see if I can memorize some choruses here and there. Prior to this, I had also went through the album a couple of times while I was trying to win tickets over the past week. Two songs I knew I wanted to hear for certain: No Boundaries and I Need To Know (cuz it's the only song on his album with just a solo piano accompainment). But all in all, I just wanted to see him perform live in person. I also made sure to wear a plaid shirt (a large old one I pulled from my brother's wardrobe) as fans were saying that is part of his image. Funny how I didn't bother about these kinds of details before as a 'fan' huh?

So I made my way down to the venue early in the afternoon at 2pm, as agreed with Anthony. There were two other fans already starting the queue and they told me about 10 others will join them later (actually, it turned out to be twice that number, which made us a little mad) as they were part of this online Kris community. They spent the whole day making countless banners. Kris and his band arrived at around 4pm and what 20 of us who were there were like, butt-lazy to get up from our positions in the queue to rush to him. So when Kris was the last to get off the bus, he turned around, waved heartily at us with both arms flailing, and we ALL JUST COOL-LY SAT THERE, CHEERED A LITTLE AND WAVED BACK. Catching a glimpse of Kris, like, he is the smallest person in his entourage?? And he is quite skinny too. He is what I would call a petite male. (He looks like he could be my younger brother, haha. He is prob around 1.7m or shorter.) They soundchecked a few songs, we could so hear it from outside, and then they came back out to board the bus again to leave for some appointment. This time, Kris had some security people around him, who told us he would come back later. There wasn't any second chances to redeem ourselves, lol.  I had prepared my ipod and ticket to be signed, but whatever, I wasn't expecting much as I have the worst luck with celebrities (I'm not even kidding). Can I just mention  here also that his two guitarists are so tall, young and hot-looking? :)

One hour before the gig, the doors were opened and by then, there were like, 25? other young girls lining up in front of us (dang those little groupies), many wearing plaid shirts. Some of us were pretty mad at these girls for so easily jumping the queue but we let them be cuz I think we rather they do their thing screaming and holding placards to Kris, and they're relatively short too :) so no worries for our views being blocked. Once inside the venue, it was more waiting, but we got such a crazyawesome clear view in seeing the stage being set up. Why? Because there were no barricades whatsoever. We were literally right in front of the stage. Hmm, like when has that ever happened before? Like never? Only at MTV awards on TV? And only at this Kris Allen concert at Zirca. There was a little runway protruding out in the middle of the stage and I staked out my position there. If it's one thing I've learned, it's better to be in the center when you're in front, than anywhere else. So we got to see the crew people taping down the markings for positions......and then the setlists! The fans went crazy for that, pasting photos and writing words like 'I/SG <3 U Kris'  and colouring on them. Just barely containing themselves from ripping it off....and then the mics! I was supersuper thrilled to see the crew guy taping down a mic stand right on the freaking runway itself!! That means who else other than Kris himself will be positioned there the whole night. Cue more hysterical twitters ensuing in my area.

And the other fans around me...let's talk about them. Kris Allen's moshpit fans were not only tame, they were nice! Kudos to them. One voluntarily helped me put my aunty plastic bag of library books on this step in front of the stage while another helped me pull my bag strap up quickly on my shoulder when it repeatedly fell down during the concert. When moshpit fans look out for each other, even the littlest things count. So I'm really grateful to them. But despite the tame crowd, I actually sprained my back a little during those moments when Kris was interacting with the crowds, and everyone wanted to touch him, and they squish up against  you like crazy.

About the concert, well, do you know Kris's music live is actually more leaned towards soft rock?? His first song of the night was Heartless and I was so glad he rocked it his own way. Not that R n B karaoke-like shit on his album, but old school rock and roll and even a little gangsta rap but done in a soulful vocal way. The outro for Heartless with another song Gangsta's Paradise was perfect, with his band members synchronizing their vocal harmonies and bringing out the theme of jilted love so perfectly. Watch it:



Kris's arrangements of his songs for live performance are strong man. Here's a funny testament, right when the first note was played, I could strangely feel like, the vein in my neck straining and throbbing. Isn't that weird but cool? You just know the band is going to give the audience a good time. Though the sound system was baddd, it sounded like Kris managed to keep a clean record throughout the whole gig of being vocally in tune. That is pretty impressive. Even for classics like Ain't No Sunshine and Man In the Mirror, Kris rocked it, like literally, Kris-style. Kris's got talent yo.

One last thing I was super satisfied of, was that I got such a fantabulous front row view of Kris rocking out on his acoustic guitar(s) like, 80% of the time. Pure eye-candy mannn! :D The other 20% was when he was rocking out with the audience themselves. His face didn't look that cute as I expected, from my position of below-looking-up compared to the traditional camera view of straight-ahead frontal view, but seeing Kris let go and rock out at an intimate venue and small stage with his fans and the mic alternately was priceless. Also, gotta thank Kris for picking such young good-looking band members. The bassist was sexy with his curly hair and moves, the other two guitarists, nothing more to say, they're model-ly good-looking in the first place and his drummer is the cutest thing. He really looks like a little kid with his  nerdy glasses and messy hair.
 

Annnd, watching other people's vids of the concert and reliving the songs, I suddenly remembered when Kris was playing Falling Slowly (my vids with retarded sound because of my position in the crowd is here: Part 1 and I was so engrossed in the song I accidentally pressed 'stop recording', so here's Part 2). It sounded vaguely familiar to me at that time because I had loved that song last year!! It's a soundtrack from this indie foreign movie entitled Once and I remember watching the DVD last year and kept replaying the parts of the movie wherever the songs were featured. I thought the movie was crap but the music Beautiful. I THOUGHT I knew the words to that song during the concert but didn't try to singalong much because I'm not one for memorising lyrics (I was content to video and enjoy the music baby!). I mean, I used to call myself such a hardcore Mraz fan and have 500+ songs of his on my ipod but I can't really sing a song of his right down to the last word because I always mix song lyrics up. lol! The same thing used to happen when my friend tested me to sing Avril songs (back when I was similarly obsessed with her) and I always fumbled them up like in the 2nd verse or the bridge. I'm a dork that way.

But don't you adore Kris's version of that movie soundtrack?? It builds up simply, acoustically, slowly, crescendos and comes to the thumping climax which is actually a mash-up with another song With or Without You by the band U2.

I must say, I'm quite impressed with you Kris. You know what, I've never actually had this much fun at a concert before. :O Kris gamely made this whole experience something for us fans never to forget in a long time. I would like to think this is only the icing on the cake for Kris? If you want to talk about his music career prospects, I say he has LOTS of potential. He sounds different and better live (even with a crappy sound system you hear?). He strives hard as well for showmanship and interaction with fans and his efforts are appreciated. I hope he sticks around in the music industry for the long term and have a career something along the lines of Mraz. Produce his own music, write and play his own music, I'm really looking forward to that. He's not looking into entertainment, shock or fad value, he's around because he genuinely loves the music. All that publicity as an AI winner is good for him now, but I think in the long-term, he will simply let his music do more of the talking. And I don't get all the Adam supporters-cum-Kris haters out there. They are so unhappy with Kris fans, trolling everywhere on the web just to attack them. What's up with them man. Both Idols alumnus are very different so let them both do their own thing. Besides, aren't both of them supposed to be good friends in real life too?

With that said, Imma bug my friend to send me his pre-Idol album soon. Just heard one song, Wastin' Time on youtube and omg, he sounds so much like Mraz in his early works. No wonder I like him so? :DDD aaah!


PS: Er, like I'll definitely pay to watch his next gig in Singapore yeah. No second thoughts. No boundaries the next time.

 

-Update-

Just uploaded the rest of my vids of the concert: Can't Stay Away, Before We Come Undone, The Truth, Is It Over, Alright With Me and Come Together . Also, posting up the pic of the setlist taken by this cool chick whom I met at the concert and is in the pic with me above :)

PPS: I'm gonna update this post soon with me covering a bit of my fav Kris song, which does not appear on his album and which he did not sing that night. After my throat recovers, that is. :D

-Update-

Me attempting to rock out on some Kris Allen after not being able to sing even just yesterday, 19th Feb. Since I'm still recovering, my vocal range is lower than normal. ha. Enjoy, No Boundaries: