Following a decade-long gap, the king of easy listening returned to delight fans with Michael Buble Live in Bangkok 2015 at IMPACT Arena on Friday.
Michael Buble performs at IMPACT Arena on Friday night.
The concert was long-awaited and much anticipated, judging from the buzz before the doors opened. The women, in particular, practically swooned at the sight of the life-size Michael Buble cut-out placed outside the hall for photo opportunities. For the men, the Singha booth perhaps provided an equivalent joy.
The warm-up performance was provided by Naturally 7, a fantastic band that uses nothing but human voice to create amazing music. In this debut visit to Bangkok, the New York-based band treated the audience to six songs, each more mind-blowing than the last. If you've never heard of them, Google them now. Actually, not now. After you finish reading this review, maybe. But do look them up — they are that good.
The vibe was already thriving when Naturally 7 bid farewell to the stage to make way for Buble. The intermission felt like an eternity, but was actually around 30 minutes, peppered with annoyed shouts from the audience from time to time. Some people started walking in and out of the venue to find snacks, whereas many others just resorted to playing with their smartphones to kill time.
Around an hour-and-a-half after the start time printed on the ticket, the king of easy listening emerged on stage, all hot and fiery with his popular song Fever, followed by Haven't Met You Yet.
Despite the fact that the sound system wasn't great — the microphone did not capture the essence of his voice well enough, and there was some echo bouncing around, his first few songs were greeted with incredible enthusiasm. If the atmosphere of the concert could be monitored using a cardiograph, it would be resemble the readings of an arrhythmia patient. There were moments when the audience was not all that enthusiastic, like when he was singing lesser-known songs, but there were also incredibly entertaining moments that made the fans scream like crazy.
Buble might be a great singer, with a syrupy voice that makes any song sound romantic, but he's an even better entertainer. This man could easily do stand-up and his signature mischievous grin makes his jokes even more pleasant. One example would be how he told the audience that the following song was a special song to his family, a song from his grandparents' wedding. He then sang Everybody by Backstreet Boys.
All of his hits were sung in this concert — It's A Beautiful Day, Home, Fever, Feeling Good, Sway, and Haven't Met You Yet. He also delivered renditions of timeless love songs such as You Make Me Feel So Young by Frank Sinatra, the Bee Gees' To Love Somebody and How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, Who's Lovin' You by the Jackson Five, and Unforgettable by Nat King Cole. Another impressive touch was how he introduced Team Buble — the musicians behind the success of his songs. Rather than being an exercise in tedium, he addressed them one by one in such a playful manner that it was rather endearing.
A clichéd pretend-end was also included in this concert, with Buble abruptly bidding farewell after singing It's a Beautiful Day. Soon, though, he returned with a glittery jacket to perform three more songs, before wrapping up his show for the night in style — singing the last bit of A Song For You by The Carpenters without using a microphone, with no music; just raw, plain Buble-ness resounding around the hall. Now, go Google Naturally 7. They are seriously awesome.
