i just returned from the joey mcintyre concert here in madison, wi. it was at a small venue connected to the orpheum theater called the stage door. it was not full, but the audience was excited and ridiculous. my roommate and i should never feel as if we are the coolest people in the room. the audience was mostly 30somethings who had pined after a much younger joey of yester year. they had terrible hair, terrible clothes (spandex leopard print pants) and had no shame in walking up to the stage to take about one trillion pictures of the man who once adorned their bedroom walls. i wouldn't be surprised if his posters are still up on some of their walls. so many ruffians.joey mcintyre as you may know is a former member of new kids on the block. my roommate was a fan when she was 6, but i missed out on the craze due to the short time my family spent living in england. my grandma brought my eldest sister a cassette tape of them while we were in england, but we were like "what the hell is this grandma, you're crazy".
back to the show, minus the creepy crowd, i thought he did a great job. he's promoting his latest cd of crooner standards, i love all the songs on the cd. i just can't resist a good performance of all the way or makin' whoopee. he performed practically all the tracks from the cd and threw in a couple surprises for the audience. please don't go girl, a new kids' song was performed, a great broadway medley including some wicked and elvis presley's hound dog. my favorite part of the night was the audience request for ain't no sunshine. the band threw together an arrangement on the spot and improvised behind him. it was a fun show and he worked the banter between songs very well considering how intimate the venue was.
it's too bad only a few new listeners are being drawn in to his shows, it seemed to be mostly new kids on the block fans. i just love the standards and knew that he had the vocals to pull off a good show. hopefully a bigger audience will discover him. it makes me angry when people yell during songs, i think i might be getting old, but then again that always bothered me even during nsync concerts or other girl infested arenas. if you yell you can't hear the singing or the playing and isn't that why we're all here? gah, apparently not.
