I made sure I didn't miss Adam's performance this time. It was country week and I was very intrigued and excited by how he would deal with this genre. I've never been a fan of country or the whole demographic I associate (predominantly white republican hicks, rednecks, bible-bashing puritans and conservatives twanging their way through songs of heartbreak) with it, and I didn't see it be his thing either.
When he described the sitar arrangement I felt even more excited because it would be a chance for him to stick his fingers up at the world of country and do his own anti-country thing. When I heard the piano accompaniment in the introduction, it sounded slightly menacing and when I heard his voice in the rehearsal, he sounded very seductive. Randy Travis seemed terrified. I couldn't wait and was salivating with anticipation.
On he came and I loved the whole anti-country look. The introduction was brooding, lurking and slightly sinister, and when he started to sing, I thought I was witnessing something quite special. He shifted into a minor key which I thought was genius as it made it sound dark. The first of the jumps into his high notes startled me but was brilliantly executed and bang on. His voice was powerful and built up to a masterful crescendo. The swirling camera movement and graphics were hypnotic but luring. I loved Adam's interpretation of the song. To me, the lyrics of 'Ring of Fire' are about being consumed by dark, sexual, forbidden obsessive passion and the danger. His vocals captured all of these things in his performance and more, which the original jolly upbeat version didn't to me.
The whole performance was mesmerising, sizzling and screamed out 'SEX!' He reminded me of Jim Morrison flirting with the camera. He teased with his slithering snake hips and by allowing us to see a flash of his stomach. When he finished, I felt gobsmacked. WOW! That was incredible. Did he just invade my private space, strip me, stroke me, tease me, passionately seduce me and all but fuck me, leaving me aching for him to take me and just do me whichever way he pleased? It was other-worldly and I yearned more of the mysterious creature that is Adam Lambert. It was so hot, I needed a cold shower afterwards.
It was unbelieveably risqué for prime-time but I absolutely loved it! At the same I felt that he was also giving a 'Fuck You!' to the whole American Idol phenomenon of churning out identikit, commercial, manufactured, safe, creatively barren, middle-of-the-road tat and doing things on his own terms and I love him for it. To me he wasn't only performing, but he made a very, very ballsy and bold statement. GENIUS!
He seemed very happy with his performance and curious about how it was received. The reception reminded me of that scene in Back to the Future where Marty goes back in time and does his guitar solo at the prom. Everyone just stared and wasn't quite sure what hit them. People were confused and were questioning what it was that they'd just been witness to. They were weirded out and struggling to find ways to label the performance. People were lost for words. When has a reality show contestant ever done something like that? That was definitely not country, but was it vaguely rock? I guess many people aren't yet ready for him.
That's one of the many things I love about Adam Lambert, you can't place a label on him, you can't define him in terms of things that already exist. He is just him, bold and uncompromising. You just want to follow him down the rabbit hole and discover more. The Ring of Fire describes where his fans have been teased and consumed. I'm there wanting more and there's no way out. This guy is a true superstar and compels you to keep watching.
Get my Halloweeny Glam Nation design in velvety print on a T-shirt:
