Concert
Review: Kelly Clarkson By Clint Morris
 Download Album
Purchase CD
 |
Kelly Clarkson has an surprisingly
powerful voice, able to belt out
some brilliantly controlled
tunes |
Wednesday
9th November, 2005 - I'm gonna pay eighty dollars to see an
American Idol contestant in concert?! For once, sadly, no complimentary
passes were available to reviewers. What's with that? Yeah
right - and I'm gonna come through on my promise to wash the car this
weekend too... 80 bucks later, I'm booked in to a
huge arena in Melbourne, Australia to see the most successful
talent-show winner ever, accompanied by an tens of thousands of
screaming teenaged girls with their photo capturing devices on their
cellular ready and raring. Local dance act 'Rogue
Traders' kicked off the night, playing four or five songs from their
latest album (read: since Natalie Bassingthwaighte, of "Neighbours"
fame, came onboard to see them to chart victory). You
know what? Delta Schmelta, Imbruglia Magoolia, Holly Folly… Natalie has
the best pair of lungs of the Pinoak Crt bunch. Live
is always the real test for a lot of these artists, and Natalie proves
she's got what it takes to get a dome full of girls (and what boys
there were there - one, funnily enough, was her TV co-star Alan
Fletcher, who spent most of the night posing for photographs with young
girlies) into a sweat. By the time she let loose
with their smash-hit 'Voodoo Child' - she had seduced the room.
Prediction: Rogue Traders will be the headline act for a concert this
size (or close to) in our lifetime. After a long
wait (probably wanted to work the crowd into a stomping lather), Ms
Clarkson entered the stage about ten minutes past nine (following a
rather superfluous but effective airing of AC/DC's 'You Shook Me All
Night Long' played loud), going straight into one of her lesser-known
ballads. She then proceeded to say "Hi" to
Melbourne. Of course, "we're the best crowd she's ever had!!"
Over the course of the next eighty minutes or so, Ms Clarkson
and her bare midriff - she's definitely not skinny, but it's actually
refreshing to see - belted out her hits ('Behind these Hazel Eyes,'
'Since You've Been Gone,' 'Breakaway,' 'Miss Independent') and some
other oddities (Annie Lennox's 'Why' - which none of the young girlies
in the audience had heard of, and suddenly, together, they all
reclaimed their seats quite amusingly), and rather admirably if I do
say. This girl can sing! So much so that it's
actually got me interested in watching this American Idol show - yep,
that's right; I've never seen it. For someone who
was about as interested in seeing Kelly Clarkson in concert as they
were climbing all over the Grand Canyon last year (I sat it out from
afar), I've gotta say - the gal rocks. Money well spent, well kinda.
But even if my Editor says pretty please, I'm not paying to
see Guy Sebastian take to the stage - no darn way.
Download Album
Purchase CD
| 
