Sunday night, a well-dressed crowd of about 12,000 showed up to watch and listen to Buble, his five-piece band and eight-piece horn section (plus a guest appearance by a local eight-piece string section) for an hour and 45 minutes.
He filled the night with an array of songs pulled from several eras plus an extravagant visual show broadcast on a six-story screen at the back of the stage and on a 13-panel video platform that raised from the floor of the stage throughout the night. During one of his encores, Buble stood atop one of those panels, two stories above the stage.
Before his entrance, the stage erupted in the detonation of flashpots and the curtain blazed with images of fire. Buble came out dressed for a black-tie event and sang the classic Little Willie John hit Fever, then one of his own, the buttery pop tune Havent Met You Yet. By the time hed stopped to introduce his horn section, hed paid tribute to Otis Redding (Try a Little Tenderness), pulled a couple of songs from the Frank Sinatra catalog, including You Make Me Feel So Young, and had is way with Van Morrisons Moondance.
His music is easy to digest; in fact, most everything about him, from his looks to his voice, are smooth and easy. His sense of humor, however, can betray his otherwise warm and creamy charm. When a fan waved a lighted sign that said Noah, the name of his newborn son, he invited her on stage. And with a deadpan straight face, he said of the recent birth (pardon the paraphrasing): It was the greatest feeling in the world when I found out he was really mine. … My wife can be a little slutty. I expected it to look like one of my horn players.
And so it went all night: lots of classic songs crooned in a faithful Vegas/lounge style broken up by several bits of sarcasm and humor.
See photo gallery from the show here
The energy never flagged. He brought out the string section for a few songs, starting with a lovely version of Thats All, his homage to Nat King Cole, and then an evocative cover of the Bee Gees How Do You Mend a Broken Heart.
During the satiny and saccharine Home, one of his own songs, the enormous screen showed some very candid and touching black-and-white video portraits of families and relatives posed on a couch, exhibiting various states of affection and intimacy. It brought a couple of fans up front to tears, which Buble gently poked fun of afterward.
He honored the Bee Gees again, when he moved to the stage at the back of the arena. There he was joined by his opening act, Natural 7, a seven-piece vocal play group that sings a cappella and beat-boxes the sounds of a rhythm section. They paid tribute to Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, covered the Bee Gees To Love Somebody and brought the show back to the main stage with a version of the Beatles All You Need Is Love that ended with the crowd singing-along boisterously as a blizzard of heart-shaped confetti fell from above.
Buble didnt let that mood dim, ripping immediately into Burning Love, then Its A Beautiful Day from To Be Loved, the album he released in April. He returned for the encore dressed in a spangled black jacket and no tie and delivered three more classics, including a nice rendition of Leon Russels A Song for You. He ended that one by singing the final several lines unamplified, without his microphone. The crowd dutifully fell into a thick hush, and he could be heard clearly at the other end — no small feat in a sports arena.
On a night filled with lots of lights, glitter, laughter and glitz, it was one of the evenings simplest yet more resonant moments.
Article source: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/09/4468031/michael-buble-delivers-plenty.html