Fang You Adam! - A Halloween Treat

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I decided it was time for a little seasonal Halloween treat. Remember last year's Party City fund-raising gig? Well when I was cut off from the online world, distraction-free and incommunicado, I got constructive. My perfectionism decided to sort out the videos with those wishy-washy colours and the sound that dribbled out of one ear, so we could enjoy it that little - but very important - bit more. I omitted all the footage that didn't include Adam, adjusted the picture, muted some of the screaming and created a synthetic stereo track. Here are a couple of before and after shots:

Adam sings without a band behind him and the venue doesn't appear to support the performance with the same level of professionalism as he's accustomed to. There are constant sound issues and the engineer is unresponsive to Adam's gestures so he has to interrupt his performance to give verbal instructions. As you can tell, this isn't one of my favourite gigs because I think this is one of the rare occasions on which Adam seems a little uncomfortable. It's like he and the audience - which isn't made of avid fans - aren't quite on the same level and that energy exchange he often mentions is somewhat stunted. He has to work extra hard to engage them and get them going. I feel his frustration that they don't afford him enough respect and he has to tell them to shut up at the start of BtbW.

All videos from this concert are now in this embedded playlist:



Despite all this, the vocals are brilliant throughout and the banter is charming. I love this longer version of RoF and this is the only time we hear him sing both BoW and BtbW outside of AI. It's been a while since we last heard this slow emotional version of MW and he manages to recreate those stratospheric notes of BtbW with aplomb. We get a triple helping of 'Baby', 'Woman' and 'Man' at the a capella ending of a high-energy, gyratory, rocking WLL. I miss this arrangement and would love to hear it before the end of the tour. It's hard to believe he does all of this whilst wearing fangs. Yes, he can still fucking sing amazingly well with big fangs in his mouth!

Get my Halloweeny Glam Nation design in velvety print on a T-shirt:

DOWNLOAD Ring of Fire iPod compatible mp4 - 19.7MB
DOWNLOAD Ring of Fire HD mp4 - 48.7MB

DOWNLOAD Black or White iPod compatible mp4 - 29.3MB
DOWNLOAD Black or White HD mp4 - 72.4MB

DOWNLOAD Mad World iPod compatible mp4 - 24.7MB
DOWNLOAD Mad World HD mp4 - 61.1MB

DOWNLOAD Born to be Wild iPod compatible mp4 - 29.3MB
DOWNLOAD Born to be Wild HD mp4 - 72.8MB

DOWNLOAD Whole Lotta Love iPod compatible mp4 - 36.4MB
DOWNLOAD Whole Lotta Love HD mp4 - 89.9MB


And here's a new Glampire pic from last night:

Happy Halloween!

Top 7 - Born To Be Wild

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Since I'd been sucked into my obsession, I'd spent all week thinking, reading articles and watching videos of Adam. The week's theme was songs from the movies, and I spent quite a lot of time trying to come up with a list of what Adam would sing. One of them that did go through my head was 'Born to be Wild', but I thought that perhaps he would go for a song from one of Tarantino's, since he was going to be the mentor. I decided that I would watch the performance streamed online as I couldn't wait another two days before seeing it on UK TV. I needed my Adam fix. The picture and sound weren't great, but I felt it was better than nothing.

In the intro clip, Adam told us straight away what he was going to sing and what his spin on it would be. I felt a slight tinge of disappointment that he didn't choose something completely insane. Tarantino showed himself to be fan of Adam's, which was quite amusing. Who can blame him? In the rehearsal with the piano, Adam sang a bar of the chorus with a rocker expression and snatched his head back when he was finished. I was stunned by the timbre of his voice, which sounded very rich. I felt a strong yearning to hear him sing a live acoustic set in order to fully appreciate the beauty of his voice. I look forward to hearing his rehearsal as well as the performance.

Adam started off shaking a leg whilst facing the background screen that was lit up with lightning. From the start, the song was fast and catchy, and Adam skipped forward to the front of the stage to sing. He wore thick eyeliner and trainers for the first time, which surprised me and hinted at Indie Kid rather than All-Out Rocker. He looked a little spooky and maintained a hard expression for much of the performance. The camera mainly had shots of him above the waist so I could only really guess what he was doing with his legs, but I'm guessin there was a fair amount of hip shaking going on. He did some stomping, jumped around and did some headbanging, getting the band and backing singers to do the same. I thought the performance would have been better without the backing vocals because they didn't seem quite in tune with Adam's unbelievable pitch-perfect vocals, some of which he dramatised and may have been the reason for Simon's 'Rocky Horror' comment. How the hell can he move about like that and manage to sing in tune? His voice control is just out if this world. It was a very exciting and energetic performance, building up to the most amazing finish. The last 'wild' was just jaw-dropping, leading up to the most amazing final note run. That last note was sung on his knees and completely blew me away. How can someone be that brilliant a live singer and performer? There were absolutely no shaky notes in the whole of that. He hit every single one with verve. The crowd was in a frenzy and I was in shock for a little while afterwards.

At the end of the performance, he gave us his signature beaming smile and blew a kiss to the crowd. Paula was jumping around and screaming like a groupie. Being the consummate professional that he is, Adam managed to calm down and detach from the performance, earnestly focussing all his attention to the judges. Paula's comments were rather garbled but Simon had a huge grin on his face. He did his best to talk down the performance in his duty to keep the competition going, despite the fact that he blatantly loved it. Ryan managed to get him to admit that he liked the performance in the end. I thought that Adam showed diplomacy when Simon was trying to justify his negativity through jeers. He told us all that he understood where Simon was coming from and in doing so, gave him respect.

My Adam obsession was reaching fever pitch and I was starting to think about what he would choose to do next. He's certainly the most talented, intriguing, inspiring and intoxicating artist I've heard in a long time. It seems there's nothing he can't do.