Clay Aiken Jukebox Tour 2005
On August 25th, I, um, went somewhere. Actually, I went to the Molson Amphitheatre to see, er, someone play. This person was, uh, a guy. He sang some songs. His name is Clay Aiken and once upon a time, I was a shameless fangirl of his. Now, one thing you should know is that I really, really enjoy mocking this person. In fact, the main reason I paid a lot of money bought tickets for this concert is because this person had never come to Toronto with his own show before, and I would not be denied the opportunity to mock him LIVE! Thanks to my brej fizzybottlecap's mad TicketBastard skillz, we would be mocking from FOURTH ROW CENTRE seats.
Seriously, these seats were the best seats I've ever had at The Shed (T.O. music fans' nickname for the Molson Amphitheatre and its lousy acoustics) ever, despite having been to many concerts there in the past. I had fourth row seats to Lilith Fair one year, but they were off to the side, not DEAD CENTRE like these ones. The person I'd come to mock was, like, right in front of our faces, and I was happy I'd decided to sneak my camera in past security. When we got to our seats, we were surrounded by old women, for serious, and the woman beside me smiled at me benevolently and said, "Are you girls planning to stand much tonight?" I was trying to figure out if she wanted me to say yes or no, but Jess answered for me and said that she didn't stand at concerts. The woman was all, "Oh. Well, I'm planning to stand!" Uh, yeah, she sure was, with a huge frickin' video camera and two digital cameras ready to collect Clack. Heh.
The tour started off with extreme cheez as Clay's backup singers - two bodacious black women named Angela and Quiana who I kept mixing up throughout the night, because my mind wanted to believe the one with braids was Quiana, but the chubbier one was actually Quiana and skinnier braided girl was Angela - and a guy named Jacob who was like Justin Guarini with Mild Talent, came out and asked people in the crowd for quarters to put into a big jukebox that was on stage. Then Clay emerged from the shadows and SHRIEKING!!! began. I have to say, though, the Kalan Krazies have the Clayzies beat in terms of the decibel level of their shrieking lately.
The 50s medley featured "Twistin' the Night Away", "Johnny Be Good", "Rockin' Robin", "The Great Pretender", "Only You", "I'll Be Blue", "Mr. Postman", "That'll be the Day", "Rock 'n' Roll is Here to Stay", "Let's Go to the Hop", and "Great Balls of Fire". It was cute, and most of it suited Clay because the songs are so cheez anyhow. The last two songs featured Clay trying to dance on a piano, and that was not-so-cute. It actually made me laff a lot, but I was so busy taking pictures that I didn't laff loudly enough to piss off the fanwomen. After the medley, Clay pretended to be serious and sang "Unchained Melody" with lots of gratuitous glory-noting. The fangirls squealed and ate it up, but... meh.
Then, because the extended 50s medley wasn't enough, Clay put on some blue suede shoes (literally - and his feet are as big as boats, for real), and sat down at the piano to accompany himself on "Love Me Tender." This was when I had to stop mocking him for a second because he started mocking himself, saying something along the lines of, "This show is all about me making a fool of myself, and here's the first big one" before starting to play. Awww. When he mocks himself, I kind of love him again. But then he had to go ruin things by trying to swivel his hips and dance like Elvis, and everyone knows that CLAY SHOULD JUST NOT DANCE EVER, so this was bad and wrong and made me laff and mock more. The rest of the medley consisted of "Hound Dog", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Don't Be Cruel", "Rock Around the Clock", "Heartbreak Hotel", "Jailhouse Rock", "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You", and "Suspicious Minds." Watching Clay sing Elvis is kind of like watching Kalan try to be a rock star (i.e., cringeworthy and wrong), except a lot more amusing.
At some point - I think this point? - Clay started chatting with the audience about how "gentlemen" (gah, I kind of love his cute southerness) don't like coming to his shows, and decided to find a guy who'd been dragged by his female companions. He then proceeded to actually walk right into the crowd - something Mister Porter's management would never allow him to do, gasp! HEAVEN FORBID! - and walked RIGHT IN FRONT OF US - seriously right in front of us, I wouldn't have even had to reach my hand out to grab him, he was already right there! - and I was sort of tempted to squeal like a fangirl was kind of amused because the women all around us kind of went speechless in shock. They behaved surprisingly well, though. I mean, if it had been Kalan, I would've feared for his life.
Eventually, Clay found a husband who admitted to being dragged, and was all, "Why didn't you want to come to my show, sir? Do you not like me??" The guy was all embarrassed and it was kind of amusing and cute. Clay then proceeded to wander around the audience until he found his Assistant Producer, who is Canadian and is David Foster's sister, and made her promise she would come up and dance during the 70s medley in the second act.
Then Clay put on a stupid hat to travel into the 60s, and began the medley with "Daydream Believer", which was strangely pretty and one of my favourite little moments of the show, until he attempted to do a little cross-step dance with Quiana and Angela and looked incredibly mockable while doing so. *snicker* The rest of the medley was "Downtown", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Sugar Sugar", and "Happy Together." By "Sugar Sugar", I'd forgotten about laffing/mocking and was starting to sing along; by "Happy Together", which always reminds me of camp because we used that song in, like, every Eagles' (as in the little kids at camp, not the band that sang "Hotel California") musical ever, I was grinning and totally singing along. Gah. I COULDN'T HELP IT! He's really freaking charming and disarming live, in a strange, mockable, yet loveable way!
Then Clay sang "Solitairrrrrrrrrre" and it was, um, brought to you by the letter R.
This was followed by a Motown medley, because Clay is totally suited to singing Motown songs, except not. *snicker* I'm no Motown expert, but Jess claims that half the songs in the medley weren't even really Motown, and that whoever was the music programmer for the tour must've decided that any music sung by black artists in the 70s must be Motown. We were making semi-offensive jokes about how Quiana should have known better, because, like, her name is Quiana, and anyone named Quiana should have enough PRYDE to REPRESENT! The medley included "Where Did Our Love Go?", "Midnight Train to Georgia", "My Girl", "Tears of a Clown", "Rescue Me" (Angela/Quiana duet, Clay-free), "Heard it Through the Grapevine" (mostly Jacob), "I'll Be There", "Freedom", and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (Clay and Angela, with the crowd singing along). It also involved some really, really bad "choreography".
There was then a twenty-minute intermission so Clay could change clothes or something, and I took pictures of all the skaries wearing homemade Clay Clothing. This one girl had a purse with Clay's Rolling Stone cover on it, and that skared me a lot:
A group of squealing old ladies congregated in our section and started shrieking about how Clay had walked right in front of us, and one of them said to the others, "HE WAS SO CLOSE I COULD SEE HIS WHISKERS!" Ewwwwwww!!!!! I don't want to hear about Clay's stubble, yo. Ew. That's really wrong and unnecessary.
There was also this one chicky about our age who kept running into the aisle in front of our seats every three seconds when Clay was on stage so her boyfriend or whoever could take a picture of her so it looked like she was standing beside Clay. I swear to God, she did this at least 20 times, if not more. It was really weird and annoying.
Clay started off Act II with a little schpiel about the 70s, and then asked the audience if they could think of anything of significance that happened in that decade that he hadn't mentioned. Someone yelled out "Trudeaumania!" and Clay, being a dumb American, looked totally clueless, glanced over at the band, and shrugged; people then started specifically yelling out Canadian history tidbits to bug him, like Canada beating Russia in hockey, etc. The whole time, a slew of fanpeople who had clearly been to 3094834 stops on the tour already started yelling really loudly, "YOU WERE BORN!" and he proceeded to completely ignore them and called on other people, embarrassing one uber-fan by referring to her as "Yes, you, ma'am, the one who is extremely close to me and is still using binoculars... Once you stop having a seizure you can talk to me." Snark is <3. Hee. They kept yelling, so he stopped, put his hands on his hips diva-style, and proclaimed, "Now. You would not have gotten by with that kind of behaviour in mah classroom!" HAHAHA CUTE! The teacher-talk was instantly endearing and I was all, "Wheeee, he ignores skaries, mocks them, and then throws in teacher-talk while he's at it! Way to bring the snark!" Jess was all, "Of course he can snark. He's a diva queen." BWAH!
The fanpeople refused to shut up, so he finally was like, "You people, I'm gonna tell you something right now! Now I know I'm in a new country, and I gotta be respectful. But I do this little bit every night, and I always end with the same punchline. And for some reason, people like to take it from me. Now when this lady back here (*points to lady*) said 'You were born', I heard her, but I chose to ignore it, because I like to use that later in the show. So you should've figured that out. Then when this gentleman (*points to guy*) just about broke his neck standing on his chair to scream it out, I ignored him as well. When this lady over here said it, I ignored her as well, and for some reason you think I'm going to listen to you? You know what? Just forget the 70s and 80s! I am HURT!" AHAHAHA! DIVATASTIC!
Yo, the costumes for the 70s medley were really, really, really, really hideous. The costumes for the whole thing looked like they had a clothing budget of $50, total, and Quiana and Angela in particular looked like they were dressed at the dollar store, but I think the 70s costumes were the worst. Act II started with a medley including "Car Wash", "Oh, What a Night", "September", "Nights on Broadway" (SHOUTOUT TO HIS LOVER RUBEN!), "Too Much Heaven", and "I Feel the Earth Move" (Angela solo).
He then cheezily leaned on the piano and crooned "Mandy" - which was okay, although I can never stop thinking of Woetzel & Steuer when I hear that song, heh - and then went into an overblown version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." There was no gospel choir. On Christina's behalf, I was sad. ("LIIIIKE A BRIIIIIDGE..." Ha!) But no worries! The gospel choir was coming, sort of!
THIS IS THE PART OF THE SHOW THAT WAS REALLY WRONG! Clay, Angela, Quiana and Jacob wore gospel robes and started singing a strange, faux-gospel version of the first verse of "When Doves Cry" by Prince. Then, Clay ripped off his robe to reveal a stupid 80s getup, and he started dirty dancing with the girls and singing a song about sex! :-O! It was SO WRONG! IT WAS NOT FOR DA CHIRRUN. D: Seriously, I was kind of disturbed, and I tried to avoid having my brain scarred for life by only watching this through my camera as I tried to take pics/video of the wrongness. Yo, yo, YO, Clay should never, EVER be singing songs with lines like, "Maybe you're just like my mother/She's never satisfied" while grinding against his backup dancer! FOR SERIOUS, yo! I CANNOT PUT INTO WORDS HOW WRONG IT WAS. I wanted to roll into a ball and whimper, or yell, "STOOOOP!" really loudly while banging a cowbell, or something.
Thank God, it ended, and then they went into an 80s medley of "All Night Long", "Never Gonna Give You Up", "Alone" (MELISSSAAA!) and "Rock With You" (Jacob solo), and then Clay went back to leaning on the piano and sang "Sailing", which was cheez.
Clay went off to change, and then came back out wearing a ridiculous untucked shirt and vest outfit for the 90s, and announced, "This is what we looked like in the 90s. Stupid. Just completely stupid!" He went over to Angela and was like, "This outfit is made of spandex. Angela says she wore it to church in the 90s. Spandex to church." *head-shaking* "What kind of church was that? A Baptist church?? Not any Baptist church I've ever been to!" I wanted to start randomly yelling out, "MORAVIAN!!!" at this point, but I thought better of it. *snikkering muchly* He then pointed to Jacob, who was wearing overalls with one side unbuttoned, and was all, "Gentlemen, when you wear overalls, button both hooks. But for ten whole years, we went around with the hooks unbuttoned!" He chatted for awhile longer and I seriously was cutified and wanted him to not sing or attempt to dance, but just sit down on the stage and talk for awhile. I don't know what it is - when the boy starts talking he's so dorky and just... charming. There's no other word for it.
There was then a little segment where the backups sang "Can't Touch This" while Clay told the audience that Quiana was going to dance for us, and that we could request whatever dances from the 90s that we wanted to see. He made fun of his lack of dance ability by attempting some really goofy dancing himself, and then Quiana demonstrated a whole bunch of random 90s dance steps as Clay laffed at her. At one point she didn't know the dance the audience member requested, and Clay was all faux-bitchily, "Figure it out! It's MY NAME on the ticket!" *SNORT*
The 90s medley included "Black Velvet", "End of the Road" (Sam would've called it a super-wanksta version), "Iris" and - GET THIS - "Livin' La Vida Loca". That was also really significantly wrong and should never happen again. Then there was a significant chunk, if not all of, "I Can't Make You Love Me" - to which I said I preferred Kim Locke and Amber's versions and Jess said she preferred the original - and "Turn Down the Lights", and then Clay went off to change while Quiana solo'd on "I Will Always Love You" and we decided we'd had more than enough of Quiana.
Before seguing into the 2000s, i.e., horrible songs from Craptastic: The Album, they did a little Stump the Band segment where Clay took requests from the audience and had to pay whoever requested the song a quarter if either he or someone in the band didn't know it. Jess and I immediately started yelling out, "Something More!" and "Awake in a Dream!" pretty loudly to amuse ourselves. The first real request was "Sweet Child of Mine" and Quiana, Angela, and Jacob knew the chorus, and Clay sort of tried to sing along, but mostly failed miserably. Hee. The second request was "Crying" and he sang a few lines before getting lost with the lyrics and giving up. Meanwhile, the entire front section was full of skaries who were holding up signs that said "Touch" on them. Apparently they'd started a campaign online in which they tried to get as many people as possible to print out and distribute these signs to force Clay to sing "Touch", a song which is NOT FOR DA CHIRRUN, during Stump the Band. Clay studiously ignored them and the way in which he did it was beautiful. At one point he actually looked at them and said, "I AM IGNORING YOU" and I killed myself laffing. Damn, Kalan Porter needs to take a lesson from Clay on how to deal with skaries.
The last request was "O Canada", and the boy impressed me by singing the entire thing acapella and actually getting all the lyrics, if not the entire tune, right. He said he'd had to learn it to sing the anthems at NHL hockey games, but the fact that he actually remembered it well enough to sing it through was super cute. He really should not have done this, because I loved him a whole lot for doing it, and that stalled the mocking for awhile.
Luckily, the next segment was songs from Craptastic, so the mocking came flooding back with a vengeance. It was pretty damn amusing, because out of all the songs in the whole concert, the only ones he messed up lyrics on were HIS OWN SONGS. I don't remember the exact mess-ups, but he did little lyrical flubs in both "The Way" and "When You Say You Love Me", and I pointed and laffed. He also sang "I Will Bury Carry You", and all three songs were crappy and lame!
Finally, he sat on a stool and told us that since he hadn't been in Canada for so long, he had a surprise for us - he was going to debut a BRAND NEW song in T.O. Oh, um... joy? While he was talking, the fireworks in Ontario Place started going off, so instead of trying to compete with them, he asked the technies to turn the spots off so he could look into the crowd, and he just chatted for awhile. He asked the audience if anyone had done anything special the day before, and two people said they'd had wedding anniversaries, and one girl yelled really loudly, "I DOWNLOADED CLACK!" He looked at her, rolled his eyes, and repeated dryly, "She downloaded Clack." AHHHH SNARKTASTIC. Pleeeease give Kalan lessons. At this point I was totally thinking that if Ry and Clay ever shared a stage, the flying snark would be pretty hysterical. Too bad Ryan got eaten by Aaron Walpole.
The fireworks finally stopped and he sang the new song, a piece of junque called "Tears Run Dry" which seemed to be about a bad breakup, and had really stupid lyrics like, "I'm broken/Wide open/You shattered all we had." Um, yeah, okay. Then he sang his other new song, "Back For More", which again was about a breakup - basically it's about how he keeps hearing some song on the radio and it reminds him of him and his ex and it's torture to listen to it, but he keeps "comin' back for more". The chorus goes something like, "Cuts me deep with every word/Saddest song I've ever heard/I can't help myself/I keep comin' back for more/Drownin' in the melody/Makes me feel like I can't breathe/I can't save myself/The only time I'm close to you/Is when I hear a song I'm addicted to/But I keep comin' back for more". Does that not sound like dreck? It's totally dreck, but this one is a little more EzRock, so I could see it getting decent-ish radio play, especially since it mentions the radio a lot, and radio stations seem to love playing songs that refer to the radio. This song is really, really bad, but it got really stuck in my head after the show, so I downloaded a bootleg, and I listened to it 39084 times. I think maybe I like it in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Or maybe Clay stole my brayn sellz again?
I was telling foodsthatcan about how Clay's new songs are all about breakups, and why is he singing love songs when the boy has ADMITTED he has never been in love?! Nik responded with, "Why is he singing songs about sex when he's never.......?" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA x FOREVER and WORD.
By that point, everyone was standing and shrieking (I totally was not), and then he closed to show by acknowledging his band and backup singers, and then singing "Invisible" the Gay Stalker Song. He tried to do that shirt-tugging crap he used to do, but looked all like, "Do I really have to do this? I don't want to!" and did it kind of half-heartedly.
There was no encore because by that time, the show had gone on for 2.5 hours, so it was all good. So overall? Um, it was kind of really good, in a really bad cheez kind of way, and he was kind of adorable and amusingly snarky. I would have paid money and gone again if there had been another show the next night. I don't know if he'll bring his Christmas tour to T.O., because ticket sales for this show weren't great, but if he does, I'll go, even though it'll be all or almost all Xmas songs, and I don't even celebrate the holiday. Jess thought he talked too much, but I actually wouldn't have minded if he'd, um, have sung less and talked more. But that might've killed more sellz, so maybe it was for the best?
I think that's all. If I forgot anything, Jess can remind me!
Seriously, these seats were the best seats I've ever had at The Shed (T.O. music fans' nickname for the Molson Amphitheatre and its lousy acoustics) ever, despite having been to many concerts there in the past. I had fourth row seats to Lilith Fair one year, but they were off to the side, not DEAD CENTRE like these ones. The person I'd come to mock was, like, right in front of our faces, and I was happy I'd decided to sneak my camera in past security. When we got to our seats, we were surrounded by old women, for serious, and the woman beside me smiled at me benevolently and said, "Are you girls planning to stand much tonight?" I was trying to figure out if she wanted me to say yes or no, but Jess answered for me and said that she didn't stand at concerts. The woman was all, "Oh. Well, I'm planning to stand!" Uh, yeah, she sure was, with a huge frickin' video camera and two digital cameras ready to collect Clack. Heh.
The tour started off with extreme cheez as Clay's backup singers - two bodacious black women named Angela and Quiana who I kept mixing up throughout the night, because my mind wanted to believe the one with braids was Quiana, but the chubbier one was actually Quiana and skinnier braided girl was Angela - and a guy named Jacob who was like Justin Guarini with Mild Talent, came out and asked people in the crowd for quarters to put into a big jukebox that was on stage. Then Clay emerged from the shadows and SHRIEKING!!! began. I have to say, though, the Kalan Krazies have the Clayzies beat in terms of the decibel level of their shrieking lately.
The 50s medley featured "Twistin' the Night Away", "Johnny Be Good", "Rockin' Robin", "The Great Pretender", "Only You", "I'll Be Blue", "Mr. Postman", "That'll be the Day", "Rock 'n' Roll is Here to Stay", "Let's Go to the Hop", and "Great Balls of Fire". It was cute, and most of it suited Clay because the songs are so cheez anyhow. The last two songs featured Clay trying to dance on a piano, and that was not-so-cute. It actually made me laff a lot, but I was so busy taking pictures that I didn't laff loudly enough to piss off the fanwomen. After the medley, Clay pretended to be serious and sang "Unchained Melody" with lots of gratuitous glory-noting. The fangirls squealed and ate it up, but... meh.
Then, because the extended 50s medley wasn't enough, Clay put on some blue suede shoes (literally - and his feet are as big as boats, for real), and sat down at the piano to accompany himself on "Love Me Tender." This was when I had to stop mocking him for a second because he started mocking himself, saying something along the lines of, "This show is all about me making a fool of myself, and here's the first big one" before starting to play. Awww. When he mocks himself, I kind of love him again. But then he had to go ruin things by trying to swivel his hips and dance like Elvis, and everyone knows that CLAY SHOULD JUST NOT DANCE EVER, so this was bad and wrong and made me laff and mock more. The rest of the medley consisted of "Hound Dog", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Don't Be Cruel", "Rock Around the Clock", "Heartbreak Hotel", "Jailhouse Rock", "I Can't Help Falling in Love With You", and "Suspicious Minds." Watching Clay sing Elvis is kind of like watching Kalan try to be a rock star (i.e., cringeworthy and wrong), except a lot more amusing.
At some point - I think this point? - Clay started chatting with the audience about how "gentlemen" (gah, I kind of love his cute southerness) don't like coming to his shows, and decided to find a guy who'd been dragged by his female companions. He then proceeded to actually walk right into the crowd - something Mister Porter's management would never allow him to do, gasp! HEAVEN FORBID! - and walked RIGHT IN FRONT OF US - seriously right in front of us, I wouldn't have even had to reach my hand out to grab him, he was already right there! - and I was sort of tempted to squeal like a fangirl was kind of amused because the women all around us kind of went speechless in shock. They behaved surprisingly well, though. I mean, if it had been Kalan, I would've feared for his life.
Eventually, Clay found a husband who admitted to being dragged, and was all, "Why didn't you want to come to my show, sir? Do you not like me??" The guy was all embarrassed and it was kind of amusing and cute. Clay then proceeded to wander around the audience until he found his Assistant Producer, who is Canadian and is David Foster's sister, and made her promise she would come up and dance during the 70s medley in the second act.
Then Clay put on a stupid hat to travel into the 60s, and began the medley with "Daydream Believer", which was strangely pretty and one of my favourite little moments of the show, until he attempted to do a little cross-step dance with Quiana and Angela and looked incredibly mockable while doing so. *snicker* The rest of the medley was "Downtown", "Can't Buy Me Love", "Sugar Sugar", and "Happy Together." By "Sugar Sugar", I'd forgotten about laffing/mocking and was starting to sing along; by "Happy Together", which always reminds me of camp because we used that song in, like, every Eagles' (as in the little kids at camp, not the band that sang "Hotel California") musical ever, I was grinning and totally singing along. Gah. I COULDN'T HELP IT! He's really freaking charming and disarming live, in a strange, mockable, yet loveable way!
Then Clay sang "Solitairrrrrrrrrre" and it was, um, brought to you by the letter R.
This was followed by a Motown medley, because Clay is totally suited to singing Motown songs, except not. *snicker* I'm no Motown expert, but Jess claims that half the songs in the medley weren't even really Motown, and that whoever was the music programmer for the tour must've decided that any music sung by black artists in the 70s must be Motown. We were making semi-offensive jokes about how Quiana should have known better, because, like, her name is Quiana, and anyone named Quiana should have enough PRYDE to REPRESENT! The medley included "Where Did Our Love Go?", "Midnight Train to Georgia", "My Girl", "Tears of a Clown", "Rescue Me" (Angela/Quiana duet, Clay-free), "Heard it Through the Grapevine" (mostly Jacob), "I'll Be There", "Freedom", and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (Clay and Angela, with the crowd singing along). It also involved some really, really bad "choreography".
There was then a twenty-minute intermission so Clay could change clothes or something, and I took pictures of all the skaries wearing homemade Clay Clothing. This one girl had a purse with Clay's Rolling Stone cover on it, and that skared me a lot:
A group of squealing old ladies congregated in our section and started shrieking about how Clay had walked right in front of us, and one of them said to the others, "HE WAS SO CLOSE I COULD SEE HIS WHISKERS!" Ewwwwwww!!!!! I don't want to hear about Clay's stubble, yo. Ew. That's really wrong and unnecessary.
There was also this one chicky about our age who kept running into the aisle in front of our seats every three seconds when Clay was on stage so her boyfriend or whoever could take a picture of her so it looked like she was standing beside Clay. I swear to God, she did this at least 20 times, if not more. It was really weird and annoying.
Clay started off Act II with a little schpiel about the 70s, and then asked the audience if they could think of anything of significance that happened in that decade that he hadn't mentioned. Someone yelled out "Trudeaumania!" and Clay, being a dumb American, looked totally clueless, glanced over at the band, and shrugged; people then started specifically yelling out Canadian history tidbits to bug him, like Canada beating Russia in hockey, etc. The whole time, a slew of fanpeople who had clearly been to 3094834 stops on the tour already started yelling really loudly, "YOU WERE BORN!" and he proceeded to completely ignore them and called on other people, embarrassing one uber-fan by referring to her as "Yes, you, ma'am, the one who is extremely close to me and is still using binoculars... Once you stop having a seizure you can talk to me." Snark is <3. Hee. They kept yelling, so he stopped, put his hands on his hips diva-style, and proclaimed, "Now. You would not have gotten by with that kind of behaviour in mah classroom!" HAHAHA CUTE! The teacher-talk was instantly endearing and I was all, "Wheeee, he ignores skaries, mocks them, and then throws in teacher-talk while he's at it! Way to bring the snark!" Jess was all, "Of course he can snark. He's a diva queen." BWAH!
The fanpeople refused to shut up, so he finally was like, "You people, I'm gonna tell you something right now! Now I know I'm in a new country, and I gotta be respectful. But I do this little bit every night, and I always end with the same punchline. And for some reason, people like to take it from me. Now when this lady back here (*points to lady*) said 'You were born', I heard her, but I chose to ignore it, because I like to use that later in the show. So you should've figured that out. Then when this gentleman (*points to guy*) just about broke his neck standing on his chair to scream it out, I ignored him as well. When this lady over here said it, I ignored her as well, and for some reason you think I'm going to listen to you? You know what? Just forget the 70s and 80s! I am HURT!" AHAHAHA! DIVATASTIC!
Yo, the costumes for the 70s medley were really, really, really, really hideous. The costumes for the whole thing looked like they had a clothing budget of $50, total, and Quiana and Angela in particular looked like they were dressed at the dollar store, but I think the 70s costumes were the worst. Act II started with a medley including "Car Wash", "Oh, What a Night", "September", "Nights on Broadway" (SHOUTOUT TO HIS LOVER RUBEN!), "Too Much Heaven", and "I Feel the Earth Move" (Angela solo).
He then cheezily leaned on the piano and crooned "Mandy" - which was okay, although I can never stop thinking of Woetzel & Steuer when I hear that song, heh - and then went into an overblown version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." There was no gospel choir. On Christina's behalf, I was sad. ("LIIIIKE A BRIIIIIDGE..." Ha!) But no worries! The gospel choir was coming, sort of!
THIS IS THE PART OF THE SHOW THAT WAS REALLY WRONG! Clay, Angela, Quiana and Jacob wore gospel robes and started singing a strange, faux-gospel version of the first verse of "When Doves Cry" by Prince. Then, Clay ripped off his robe to reveal a stupid 80s getup, and he started dirty dancing with the girls and singing a song about sex! :-O! It was SO WRONG! IT WAS NOT FOR DA CHIRRUN. D: Seriously, I was kind of disturbed, and I tried to avoid having my brain scarred for life by only watching this through my camera as I tried to take pics/video of the wrongness. Yo, yo, YO, Clay should never, EVER be singing songs with lines like, "Maybe you're just like my mother/She's never satisfied" while grinding against his backup dancer! FOR SERIOUS, yo! I CANNOT PUT INTO WORDS HOW WRONG IT WAS. I wanted to roll into a ball and whimper, or yell, "STOOOOP!" really loudly while banging a cowbell, or something.
Thank God, it ended, and then they went into an 80s medley of "All Night Long", "Never Gonna Give You Up", "Alone" (MELISSSAAA!) and "Rock With You" (Jacob solo), and then Clay went back to leaning on the piano and sang "Sailing", which was cheez.
Clay went off to change, and then came back out wearing a ridiculous untucked shirt and vest outfit for the 90s, and announced, "This is what we looked like in the 90s. Stupid. Just completely stupid!" He went over to Angela and was like, "This outfit is made of spandex. Angela says she wore it to church in the 90s. Spandex to church." *head-shaking* "What kind of church was that? A Baptist church?? Not any Baptist church I've ever been to!" I wanted to start randomly yelling out, "MORAVIAN!!!" at this point, but I thought better of it. *snikkering muchly* He then pointed to Jacob, who was wearing overalls with one side unbuttoned, and was all, "Gentlemen, when you wear overalls, button both hooks. But for ten whole years, we went around with the hooks unbuttoned!" He chatted for awhile longer and I seriously was cutified and wanted him to not sing or attempt to dance, but just sit down on the stage and talk for awhile. I don't know what it is - when the boy starts talking he's so dorky and just... charming. There's no other word for it.
There was then a little segment where the backups sang "Can't Touch This" while Clay told the audience that Quiana was going to dance for us, and that we could request whatever dances from the 90s that we wanted to see. He made fun of his lack of dance ability by attempting some really goofy dancing himself, and then Quiana demonstrated a whole bunch of random 90s dance steps as Clay laffed at her. At one point she didn't know the dance the audience member requested, and Clay was all faux-bitchily, "Figure it out! It's MY NAME on the ticket!" *SNORT*
The 90s medley included "Black Velvet", "End of the Road" (Sam would've called it a super-wanksta version), "Iris" and - GET THIS - "Livin' La Vida Loca". That was also really significantly wrong and should never happen again. Then there was a significant chunk, if not all of, "I Can't Make You Love Me" - to which I said I preferred Kim Locke and Amber's versions and Jess said she preferred the original - and "Turn Down the Lights", and then Clay went off to change while Quiana solo'd on "I Will Always Love You" and we decided we'd had more than enough of Quiana.
Before seguing into the 2000s, i.e., horrible songs from Craptastic: The Album, they did a little Stump the Band segment where Clay took requests from the audience and had to pay whoever requested the song a quarter if either he or someone in the band didn't know it. Jess and I immediately started yelling out, "Something More!" and "Awake in a Dream!" pretty loudly to amuse ourselves. The first real request was "Sweet Child of Mine" and Quiana, Angela, and Jacob knew the chorus, and Clay sort of tried to sing along, but mostly failed miserably. Hee. The second request was "Crying" and he sang a few lines before getting lost with the lyrics and giving up. Meanwhile, the entire front section was full of skaries who were holding up signs that said "Touch" on them. Apparently they'd started a campaign online in which they tried to get as many people as possible to print out and distribute these signs to force Clay to sing "Touch", a song which is NOT FOR DA CHIRRUN, during Stump the Band. Clay studiously ignored them and the way in which he did it was beautiful. At one point he actually looked at them and said, "I AM IGNORING YOU" and I killed myself laffing. Damn, Kalan Porter needs to take a lesson from Clay on how to deal with skaries.
The last request was "O Canada", and the boy impressed me by singing the entire thing acapella and actually getting all the lyrics, if not the entire tune, right. He said he'd had to learn it to sing the anthems at NHL hockey games, but the fact that he actually remembered it well enough to sing it through was super cute. He really should not have done this, because I loved him a whole lot for doing it, and that stalled the mocking for awhile.
Luckily, the next segment was songs from Craptastic, so the mocking came flooding back with a vengeance. It was pretty damn amusing, because out of all the songs in the whole concert, the only ones he messed up lyrics on were HIS OWN SONGS. I don't remember the exact mess-ups, but he did little lyrical flubs in both "The Way" and "When You Say You Love Me", and I pointed and laffed. He also sang "I Will Bury Carry You", and all three songs were crappy and lame!
Finally, he sat on a stool and told us that since he hadn't been in Canada for so long, he had a surprise for us - he was going to debut a BRAND NEW song in T.O. Oh, um... joy? While he was talking, the fireworks in Ontario Place started going off, so instead of trying to compete with them, he asked the technies to turn the spots off so he could look into the crowd, and he just chatted for awhile. He asked the audience if anyone had done anything special the day before, and two people said they'd had wedding anniversaries, and one girl yelled really loudly, "I DOWNLOADED CLACK!" He looked at her, rolled his eyes, and repeated dryly, "She downloaded Clack." AHHHH SNARKTASTIC. Pleeeease give Kalan lessons. At this point I was totally thinking that if Ry and Clay ever shared a stage, the flying snark would be pretty hysterical. Too bad Ryan got eaten by Aaron Walpole.
The fireworks finally stopped and he sang the new song, a piece of junque called "Tears Run Dry" which seemed to be about a bad breakup, and had really stupid lyrics like, "I'm broken/Wide open/You shattered all we had." Um, yeah, okay. Then he sang his other new song, "Back For More", which again was about a breakup - basically it's about how he keeps hearing some song on the radio and it reminds him of him and his ex and it's torture to listen to it, but he keeps "comin' back for more". The chorus goes something like, "Cuts me deep with every word/Saddest song I've ever heard/I can't help myself/I keep comin' back for more/Drownin' in the melody/Makes me feel like I can't breathe/I can't save myself/The only time I'm close to you/Is when I hear a song I'm addicted to/But I keep comin' back for more". Does that not sound like dreck? It's totally dreck, but this one is a little more EzRock, so I could see it getting decent-ish radio play, especially since it mentions the radio a lot, and radio stations seem to love playing songs that refer to the radio. This song is really, really bad, but it got really stuck in my head after the show, so I downloaded a bootleg, and I listened to it 39084 times. I think maybe I like it in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Or maybe Clay stole my brayn sellz again?
I was telling foodsthatcan about how Clay's new songs are all about breakups, and why is he singing love songs when the boy has ADMITTED he has never been in love?! Nik responded with, "Why is he singing songs about sex when he's never.......?" BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA x FOREVER and WORD.
By that point, everyone was standing and shrieking (I totally was not), and then he closed to show by acknowledging his band and backup singers, and then singing "Invisible" the Gay Stalker Song. He tried to do that shirt-tugging crap he used to do, but looked all like, "Do I really have to do this? I don't want to!" and did it kind of half-heartedly.
There was no encore because by that time, the show had gone on for 2.5 hours, so it was all good. So overall? Um, it was kind of really good, in a really bad cheez kind of way, and he was kind of adorable and amusingly snarky. I would have paid money and gone again if there had been another show the next night. I don't know if he'll bring his Christmas tour to T.O., because ticket sales for this show weren't great, but if he does, I'll go, even though it'll be all or almost all Xmas songs, and I don't even celebrate the holiday. Jess thought he talked too much, but I actually wouldn't have minded if he'd, um, have sung less and talked more. But that might've killed more sellz, so maybe it was for the best?
I think that's all. If I forgot anything, Jess can remind me!