The Return of the King

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Adam made an excellent mentor on his return to AI for Elvis week. Having a slick pompadour with a spiky modern twist, he was smart and business-like in his suit jacket for mentoring, and casually glamorous in his shirt and waistcoat on the show. He was much more bluntly honest than I was expecting, but every piece of advice ranging from presentation skills to vocal nuance to arrangement was spot-on and was much more useful than any of the nonsense dished out by the judges. It's just the contestants' loss that some frustratingly didn't follow through his advice. We saw contestant after contestant wussing out after Adam told them to push things further, take some risks and just let go. I can only conclude that it's a very difficult thing to do as fear seems to have debilitated everyone to some extent. One thing became clearer to me more than ever though, which is how much balls it takes to fully commit to going for it in every single performance. I would have loved to have seen Adam versions of all of the songs but none of the contestants would have been able to tackle any of his upbeat ones like Satisfaction, BoW, PTFM, BtBW or WLL, and neither do they possess the vocal mastery or emotional conveyance to successfully deliver RoF, MW or ACIGC. Adam Lambert is exceptionally brave but makes it look effortlessly natural with his powerful presence, dynamic range and electrifying energy on stage.

Here's a video I put together of all of Adam's parts during the show. It's not just a plain splice-and-stitch as I decided to take some artistic liberties. I hope you enjoy it.



DOWNLOAD Adam Mentor sessions AI9 v2 iPod compatible mp4 - 70.6MB

The excitement building up to Adam's performance on AI was unbelieveable. After enduring the rest of the show, when it finally got to Adam, I felt a hush sweep right through cyberspace where I was watching the stream. We held our collective breath as an air of nervous anticipation hung over us. I'd done my best to avoid any spoilers, but I had built up my expectation that this was going to be something special because Adam would want to exceed the standard he already set himself on the show. There were a number of options available, each one appealing in its own way. I was expecting to hear WWFM with a twist - perhaps one of the remixes or a surprising arrangement.



Our first view of Adam is as a solitary silhouette in front of a narrow laser spotlight ring. We wait for the spotlight to fill and brighten but it doesn't. We strain to see him, strain to see how he presents himself but he stubbornly remains shrouded in a mysterious smoke. We have to tune up our hearing sense to soak in this experience. The first ghostly elongated notes are a sublime a cappella, reminiscent of FYE at the AMAs, but there is an eerie echo. We are phantoms in an unfamiliar world, not sure where we are or where we're going. The spotlight widens to reveal turbulent clouds circling Adam in a barren alien landscape. The camera moves through the outer boundary limit and we are now sharing that dark inner space and realise we're enclosed inside a swirling vortex with the threat of something beautifully terrible looming ahead, and overhead is a portal we are both awed and frightened by because we know there's no return from it. The dizzying feeling is of floating and struggling to hold onto each other as we drift away aimlessly into an abyss.

In comes a hint of synthesiser, sounding like the slow build-up to a rave track as Adam slips from our grasp and we drift away from him. It feels like all is lost, our connection having been severed but then there's new hope as the voice becomes stronger and richer, the chorus kicks in with extra lights, and the spell that had banished us to that other world has been broken. We get our first close-up and can see Adam's hair and dramatic make-up but he remains elusive as he tries to emerge from the debris of that dark place. He's still lost in the thick fog. It leads us to some interesting camera angles where the stage looks huge and he looks so far away from everything.

It's in the second verse when we finally get to see his shiny beaded silver jacket, which I don't think is very flattering, and notice that his earpieces are glowing. The multitude of laser beams give off the feeling that Adam's in the line of fire as people are taking aim from all sides. That and the smoke make it seem like a noisy, confusing space we're now in and reflects the meaning of the song as he pleads to us. There are some breathtaking shots of Adam in iconic-looking poses singing to a spotlight ahead, but it's hard to make out his dancing. The timbre of his vocals is exquisitely rich and he hits some stunning notes in full belt. There are a few iffy notes here and there like in the final run, but in a performance like this, it doesn't matter because the audience is already spellbound. Even though I can't see him for much of the time, he owns the stage as my eyes are constantly trying to seek him out. I think he likes playing with us because he waits until we're all so desperate to see how he looks before unveiling himself.

Adam has come such a long way and it should be of no surprise that this return to the Idol stage is my favourite WWFM yet. The staging and atmospherics are staggering, the likes of which the Idol stage has probably never seen. The only thing I would change is for the smoke to get sucked away as soon as the chorus kicks in to deliver the visual impact of seeing him standing tall in the light. Impressively packed full of excitement and thrills, this is such an amazing multi-sensory spectacle to behold. I'm transported to another mood, another world. My expectations were shattered as he somehow manages to continually surprise us. Wow. What a show. Adam is king of the stage because you don't just see and hear his performances then question your senses, you are left with a lasting impression because you  feel them and want to feel them over and over again.