Michael Buble

Among the crooners of today, I have a definite soft spot for Michael Buble. The voice, the phrasing, the musicianship -- he's really got it all. He has built his commercial recording career very cannily through a mix of Great American Songbook standards (some of which get featured in movies), more recent songs that he covers quite effectively (Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," Stevie Wonder's "You and I," Anthony Newley's and Leslie Bricusse's "Feeling Good"), and new pop of his own that is showing a healthy chart-topping tendency (the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, specifically).

I recently went to a Buble concert here in Northeast Wisconsin. After seeing him live, there is certainly no doubting his star quality! He and his impressive 13-member big band put on a terrific show given the limitations of the arena format. But those limitations are considerable, and I wish I could someday hear Buble in a more intimate setting, although fat chance of that. Once an arena artist, it becomes very difficult (for economic reasons alone) to ever revert to smaller venues, except as a lark. (Springsteen has been known to "sneak" into small clubs to play sets for no doubt stunned speechless patrons -- Toad's Place in New Haven being one such club.)

Buble has excellent audience rapport, and a line of banter that recalls Chris Isaak's (from whom he no doubt learned much when he was opening for him). On his last encore, Buble went mike-less and sang unamplified to an arenaful of 8,000 people -- a coup de theatre, needless to say, and darned effective.

But having had the Buble arena experience, I don't know that I need to have it again. It was good to see him once "in the flesh" (and hey, as a healthy red-blooded gay American male, I have to say -- the guy is hot!). But I can enjoy a more comfortable Buble concert by simply visiting his clips at YouTube, which include both videos and captures of live concerts, television appearances, and so on.

I must be getting older.