American Idol Concert

[Part 2 of 2]
She wasn’t featured much, but Naima danced and sang well (her performance of «On the Floor» was quite riveting and entertaining).
Casey played the standup bass briefly, and then he lept and moved around the stage like a madman. It was exciting to see (Casey wasn’t featured that much either, and I almost forgot about him at times).
I was hoping that Jacob would sing «You’re All I Need To Get By,» and he did, brilliantly (he truly owned the stage during the song). I felt bad for him, though. In general, the crowd didn’t cheer for him much.
I’m sorry, but Paul is a weak singer. He’s cool (my mom and Judi were surprised to see just how skinny he is), but his voice is too soft. Still, he performed «Maggie May» very well, and he really got the crowd into it.
Annoying:
I believe the family behind us left (the dad kept telling his son that they would leave if he kept fussing), but were replaced by some other people. Anyway, 2 guys behind us wouldn’t shut up. They came to the concert with a woman and weren’t at all interested in it. At one point, I glared at them, and so did my mom. The woman felt bad, but the guys kept on talking. Damn jerks.
I’m glad that my friend Cuc Crystal didn’t go with us. She would have been a big distraction (I love her, but I know that she would have taken some meticulous pix of the popcorn and program).
I wish there had been more diversity. She performed them well, but I didn’t really want to hear Haley sing «House of the Rising Sun» or «Bennie and the Jets» (I like the song okay, but even Elton John was surprised when it became a hit in 1974).
Scotty didn’t appear until about 9.
There was a nice intro (a montage featuring clips of all the «American Idol» winners was shown), and then Scotty sang 4 songs in a row (in terms of his solo performances, he sang «Your Man» first and closed with «Gone” — as I expected, the crowd went especially wild for the latter).
Scotty was awesome. He truly looked relaxed while performing (it seems as natural as breathing to him). By the way, he now holds the microphone directly in front of him (his vocals were crystal clear).
It was cute to see Scotty and Lauren perform together (as far as I know, they’re still dating). They looked at each other with affection, and Scotty helped Lauren to leave the stage at the end of their duet.
The graphics on the large screen were always interesting and cool. They complemented the songs well.
The lighting was superb and so were the acoustics overall.
In no particular order, the best singers were Pia, Stefano, Thia, Jacob, Haley, and Scotty.
Casey and James deserve honorable mention.
Nobody was bad. It’s just that some performances were better than others.
About 30 songs were performed (one of the great things about the concerts is that there’s no waiting around– they’re very similar to Vegas shows in that each concert is very «full»).
At the end, a medley of songs was performed. It felt a bit rushed, but this still closed the concert on a strong note.
I’ve been to some great concerts, and this one wasn’t the very best, but it was probably the most entertaining.
Most of the Idols Live Tour footage on YouTube sucks, but I found some decent videos of «This Time,» «Who Says,» «Never Too Much» (I’m partly including the link because the video was taken during this concert), and «You’re All I Need to Get By.»
The videos are all pretty fuzzy, but you can also find these performances from the San Jose concert on YouTube: «Animal»; «Uprising»; «Sweet Child o’ Mine»; «Maggie May»; the finale.