2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: Psy

<-- Read about Train

Psy’s entrance was unimpressive, as is the portly gentleman when he just stands or speaks.  He was unassuming and warm.  The first thing he did was to thank us for the loudest volume ever in the United States and then ask for the lights to be turned on in the whole arena so he could see the fans.  It took a while before some lackey finally found the switch, giving Psy ample opportunity to ramble on in broken English about anything and everything.  He was very touched by our reaction to his presence.

The lights came on and Psy spent a minute taking pictures of the crowd.  Then the lights dimmed and he gave the people what they wanted – Gangnam Style.

It was more impressive in person than it was on Youtube.  On Youtube, you get these little splices of this man with a jiggly stomach pouring over his belt, dancing, but in person, this same man had to hit every step, jump, swoop, swipe, and sweep for the whole four minute set.

The crowd loved it.  All around me were people singing every word of the song in perfect Korean and dancing the entire dance.  A group of young men entertained the whole arena as they danced in the third level right by the railing. 

When the song was over, Psy received a standing ovation and realized that he would have to keep performing for us.  He asked for the lights to go back on.  Minutes passed and nothing happened.  Psy said, “I’ve been doing this for many years and I know lights can go on inside a building.  It can’t be that hard.”

The crowd rolled.

Finally, the light boy was woken up and driven back to the arena and he flipped the switch (must be a union job) and Psy could see the crowd.  Then he began to give us directions. 

“Now, I’ve been singing for 12 years, so I should have more songs – and I do.  But here, in the United States, I’m only known for one song.” A big cheer went up.  “So, since I’m going to sing it again, I want you to sing it louder, jump louder, and do everything you can louder so you don’t regret tomorrow.”

Then he took off his sequined shirt and rocked the house again.  The evening ended on a note of perfection.  

Everyone went home satisfied – except for me.  I wanted to write.

I hope it was worth your time.

2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: Train

<-- Read about Ed Sheeran

The Lights went dim and the sound of a train began to play over the speakers.  It was a deafening sound and was timed to ratchet up the noise to a high crescendo the moment Train entered stage right.  The crowd did as they were told and ramped up their noise until we were in a deep throated cheer when Train burst in the door.  My wife began to go hoarse.  She would have no voice left after Trains half-dozen song set, singing every word (and guitar note) at the top of her lungs and wanting with every bone of her body to jump onto the stage and kiss Pat Monahan.

Pat Monahan is not a singer.  Sure, he can sing, but he doesn’t care about that.  He doesn’t even care about the fans, that is, unless they buy tickets to his next concert.  Pat is a master marketer and proved it with everything he did while on stage.  I watched his face and mannerisms carefully.  He hit every note perfectly and yet was completely bored out of his mind.  It appeared that he didn’t want to be there.

But the fans didn’t notice.

They were too busy catching t-shirts that Pat threw out to them.  They were too busy watching Train take off his own shirt, sign it, and throw it out to a section of the crowd.  They were too busy being told to take pictures of him and post them to Twitter.

Train debuted his new and horrid song “Mermaids” by adding a little extra marketing pizzazz.  He called up a few dozen girls (and one boy) onto the stage and sang the song while high stepping around the group of fans, grabbing their phones, and taking group pictures with them.  Train knew they would immediately post them to social media and tickets would begin to move for his next show in Milwaukee, WI.

More shirts flew off the stage as Train sang through all of his modern popular songs, including his older “Drops of Jupiter”.  The crowd ate up “50 Ways to Say Goodbye”, “Drive By”, lost it when he sang “Hey, Soul Sister”, singing every word, among other songs.  He disappointed many in the crowd, including my wife, by not singing one of his best ballads, “Marry Me”, where he shows off his vocal talents.  But it made sense.  He wasn’t there to spin his singing.  He was there to whet the interest of every fan to get them to the next concert.

He succeeded.  The minute Pat finished his set, Kristine, my wife, turned to me and said, “I’m buying tickets to Milwaukee”.  Train was to perform in three days in that town.

In short, Train didn’t care for a single fan in the arena, and everyone ate it up, thinking he loved them and was there for them.  He is a master salesman.  I was thoroughly impressed.

Read the next Act - Psy

2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: Ed Sheeran

<-- Read about OneRepublic

There is a reason Ed Sheeran is so well loved and will be loved for quite a while.  He cares about music.  He doesn’t give a damn about what sells.  He uses passion, his voice, a guitar, a little technology, and an attitude of “This is me and I’m glad you like it”.  You, as the onlooker, are forced to just simply accept what is being fed to you.  And it isn’t bad, either.  The boy can sing!  And his lyrics are very strong, not coming from a word-randomizer and spit out as prosey poetisism, as much of pop today tends to be.

Ed Sheeran takes a well-known song like “The A Team”, nails it, and then adds his own rendition of it at the end, crooning out some serious opera notes, and stretching the song to seven minutes.

Ed only ended up singing three songs because his second song proved my point.  It lasted twelve minutes.  Yep.  A whole twelve minutes!  Ed Sheeran started it off by asking permission (basically just telling us) to use a Boss Loop Station. He quickly explained in terms we could understand, what the technology did.  It essentially made him into a one man band, allowing him to play, beat his guitar, and blow or sing into the microphone and the BLS would repeat it over and over again.  Then, Ed would sing and play over the top of it.  He could also stop the BLS with his foot and start it up again when he relieved the pressure.

About eight minutes into this song, not one word of his rat a tat lyrics had been understood by anyone in the crowd and the awe-inspiring talent began to wane on us.  People stopped cheering and sat down.  By the time Ed was done, everyone was in their seats, hoping beyond hope he would play “The A Team”.

He did, they popped up, and everyone loved him again.  Ed Sheeran was gold.  Ed Sheeran will be gold.  Look for more from this confident and talented young man in the future.

Ed Sheeran left quickly, not caring what anyone thought about his exit.  He was done.  He had come, he had shined, and he had wowed.  My wife was jittery.  The next act was the only reason she was there.  Her hands were cold and clammy and she wanted nothing to do with me.  The love of her life was about to enter her room.

Read the next Act - Train

2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: OneRepublic

<-- Read about Owl City

After a break in the action, OneRepublic appeared on the big screen and we listened as Ryan Tedder  told the audience that he doesn’t hold back anything with any performance.  He was right.  OneRepublic stormed the stage and we got to watch as Ryan showed his multitude of talents.  He could play the guitar (not to mention, he could throw one and hit another of his bandmates in the back), he could play the piano, beat on drums, jump up on large speakers, run up stairs into the arms of hundreds of screaming tweens and teens, he could yell, jump, dance, prance…but he couldn’t sing.

Ryan Tedder  is talentless with his voice.  Every single note he tries to sing is at least a 64^th off key.   The first couple songs were so bad, I was ready to leave the arena.  My favorite pop song of all time, “Good Life”, was butchered right before my eyes – by the group that originally sang it.  I found myself trying to sing the notes and get Ryan back on key and yet I failed to telepathically enable him to do so.

The crowd seemed to catch it and had a hard time responding to him.  Ryan must have felt it and did what every male singer knows how to do to get the girls back on his side – croon in falsetto.  When he would, he would elicit a huge scream from the girls in the arena and then lose them immediately.

If it hadn’t been for the stage presentation of “Apologize” where the cellist brought the house down with his imaginatively talented cello playing, and the best drumming of the entire night by their drummer, as well as the introduction of their new single “If I Lose Myself” (they handily nailed that one), the crowd would have left in one unit to hit the bathrooms.

Then they sang, “Feel Again”.  Ryan Tedder again butchered the tune but the band saved him and the crowd was able to enjoy one of the better written songs of the year.

All in all, I would never go to a OneRepublic concert again.  Buying the album allows the music company to fix Ryan Tedder’s voice and make the music the awesome sound we hear on the radio every day.

As OneRepublic left the stage, the room was electrified.  Everyone knew the choice meat of the evening was about to enter.  Ed Sheeran was in the house.

Read the next Act - Ed  Sheeran

2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: Owl City

<-- Read about Cher Lloyd

Owl City came on the stage.  The crowd lost it.  Adam Young is a local boy, from Owatonna, Minnesota and we all knew that.  Not only did we feel a local connection to him, but he had been around longer than the previous artists.  His unique brand of music had wormed its way into our everyday consciousness and most of us found ourselves randomly humming one of his tunes every few days or so.  The lyrics, while always simple, were meaningful, fresh, and fun.

Adam came up to the microphone and, throughout his whole set, never left the ten square feet around the mic.  But it didn’t matter.  He owned the crowd from the first note of his first song to the dying echoes of his last.  Had we been able to call for an encore, we would have brought the house down, asking for more.

His emotion was apparent throughout his set.  He loved to perform for a crowd.  Not only him, but his keyboardist and the rest of the band.  They didn’t leave an ounce of emotion off the stage.  As Adam sang his new song, “Shooting Star”, his mildly popular and enrapturing tune, “Gold” (where he seems to sing a natural auto-tune on the chorus), his most famous song, “Fireflies”, and his newest poppy song he sings with Carly Rae Jepson, “Good Time”, the crowd sang along.  EVERY. SINGLE. SYLLABLE.

We rocked, danced, and sang with the same amount of emotion he was projecting at us from the stage.  The music that we turn up to envelop us in our cars now surrounded the deepest corners of our consciousness and we were as one organism, lost in the sound together.

Owl City was good.  They won the night by winning the crowd, with no pretenses.  As Adam Young walked off the stage, I looked on with wonder, leaned down and whispered in my wife’s ear, “I’m going to his next concert.”  But, more importantly, as I watched him sing and exude his confident air, all I wanted to do was go home and sing beautiful songs that I wrote, to my own six kids.

Read the next Act - OneRepublic

2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: Cher Lloyd

<-- Read about Ellie Goulding

A lovely young lady walked onto the stage, wearing a very sexy short blue skirt, and some seriously shiny black leather, high heeled boots.  She looked nervous but pushed through it to yell out the lyrics of “Swagger Jagger”.  The tune was eerily similar to a kids lullaby.  The crowd tried hard to sing the lyrics, but it was obvious the song’s popularity in Ireland and Britain hadn’t reached our merry shores.

Cher Lloyd didn’t care.  She walked up and down the stage, back and forth, back and forth, every once in a while, rubbing the top of her legs and teasing you by pulling up on the hem of the short skirt.  She was showing off what was currently selling records for her – sex appeal, bright youth, and easy tuned lyrics.  She’ll be a flash in the pan, but sell a lot of posters of herself in the meantime.  When she’d get to the middle of the stage, she would stop and begin to stutter sway like a thin twig in the breeze, side to side, to the beat of the music.  She had good rhythm and sweet waves to rabid fans.

Unlike other artists, Lloyd made a point to introduce the title of every one of her songs.  Whenever she did, ten twelve year olds would scream as if on cue.  But that small group loved her.  By the time she reached her most recently popular song, “I Want U Back”, my ears were irritated by the similar beats, music, voice, and boring prance moves.  But!  She did have the crowd waving their hands.

Ah.  I Want U Back.  Yes, she was so excited to sing this song.  As she introduced it and the music started, she became as excited as the little group of tweens that were screaming.  But, the grunts throughout the song were recorded – making them sound fake and cheapening the next part of the song, not to mention her moves whenever “UH!” happened.

True to cuteness factor form, she sweetly thanked the crowd for having her and walked off the stage while the last notes of “I Want U Back” were finishing.  Not just notes…stanzas.  The imagery was ironic.  I don’t expect to see her on stage again.

The Excel Energy Center was about to be rocked.  The crowd had no idea what was about to hit it.

Read the next Act - Owl City

2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: Ellie Goulding

<-- Read the Intro and about Conor Maynard

Enter the beautiful and talented Ellie Goulding.  Ellie Goulding knows how to put on a show.  But, at Jingle Ball, she wasn’t in her element.  She wanted so bad to dance like she was in a hair band, throwing her head around and air-guitaring all over the stage.  Instead, she looked stiff, walking up and down the stage, keeping her arms very close to her body.  A few times during her set, she let loose and the crowd ate it up.  We saw how emotionally into her music she was as she did throw her inhibitions to the wind and grabbed drumsticks, beating drums, twirling her head.  In those moments, you watched a true star.

She sang through her beautiful song, “Anything Can Happen” and nailed it.  The crowd was enthused and sang right along with her.  Then, at the very end of her set, the electronic music for “Lights” came on and the crowd lost it.  But so did Ellie.

A few stanzas into the song, she forgot the words and waved her band off.  They stopped immediately, as she apologized to the fans.  Her apology was sweet and very short, ending with her calling her guitarist down to stand with her.  What happened next was the coolest, most intimate moment of the whole concert.

Ellie’s bandmate played his acoustic guitar to the tune of “Lights” while Ellie sang a solo.  It was beautiful.  Perfect.  Professional.  Crowd pleasing.

We gave her a loud standing ovation as she left the stage.

I recommend that you watch Ellie in a small and intimate setting, rather than a large venue.  She’ll be more in her element then.  Or, you can simply buy her albums.  Her talent is worth it, her sound is unique, and her music is delicious.

Read the next Act - Cher Lloyd

2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique: Intro and Conor Maynard

I, the author of this Common Man Critique of KDWB’s 2012Jingle Ball, arrived at the St. Paul, MN Excel Energy Center about 30 minutes before the concert was supposed to start.  I was with my wife, Kristine, who had purchased the tickets months in advance.  She was there for one reason, and one reason only – to see the love of her life, Train.

This was the first pop/rock concert of my life, at the ripe old age of 32 and I had no idea what to expect.  I would soon be both disappointed and dazzled at the same time.

Arriving at our seats, the arena was full of smoke.  Obviously for effect at one point or another.  We had missed the pre-party and were just in time for some lovely ladies in Mrs. Clause lingerie to start tearing it up on the stage.  After they were done singing whatever they were singing (who cares…they looked wonderful), dance troops jumped all over the stage to random drum beats and electronic reverberations.

These ladies and gentleman danced it up while one male dancer in a horizontally wide-striped shirt, seeming entirely disconnected from every ligament on his thin frame, made everyone else look like amateurs.  I watched in awe, and then was irritated when some local fare came out on stage and started yelling into the microphone, trying as hard as she could to get the crowd excited with what she was….singing?

We all collectively yawned and waited for a little known (to me anyway) gentleman, Conor Maynard to pop out on stage.

Yes.  Conor Maynard.  The young mini-heartthrob from Britain – Ne Yo’s protégé.  When he was announced, the girls sort of went wild. Not much enthusiasm for a guy they really didn’t know.  Conor pranced around the stage, singing his few popular songs, looking more like a puppet on strings.  At points during his set, you could see his brain think, “Oh!  I need to jump!”  And he would.

The crowd yawned again until he began to sing “Turn Around”.  Then they half sang, half Twittered, waiting for Ed Sheeran.

Which brings me to a funny truth from Jingle Ball.  Whenever KDWB, the hosts, decided the crowd was too lethargic, they would yell, “Who’s here for Ed Sheeran!!!!???”  The scream from all the tweens caused you to go deaf immediately.  The hosts ate it up and used the line the rest of the show.

Conor Maynard left the stage and nobody noticed.

Read the next act - Ellie Goulding

Almost Here: 2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique

I am almost finished with the Common Man's Critique.  It's a lot bigger task than I figured it would be and I hope you all enjoy being able to understand the non-proletariat version of the description.

It should be posted in an eight part series - all at the same time.

Enjoy.

Pending Post: 2012 KDWB's Jingle Ball - The Common Man's Critique

Yes.  I'm going to do it...soon.

All my life, I've read movie, theater, and other show critiques and got lost in the bloated language.  To me, from the cheap seats, a Midwesterner from the great state of Minnesota, it feels like my eyes are supposed to glaze over whilst the proletariat nod in glazed-eyed agreement - having no clue what they are reading.

So I'm going to write up a play by play of KDWB's 2012 Jingle Ball from a common man's perspective.  You'll finally be able to feel like you were present, rather than sitting 20,000 feet above the event, surrounded by feather pillows and a stuffed tiger.

Wait for it...