Concert Reviews
David in Red Bank NJ
February 24, 2007
Count Basie Theatre. Red Bank, NJ
Saturday night at Red Bank, David came out wearing a white shirt (but the buttons were all working) LOL. He started the show with HUSH and then, to my surprise, the next song was ROCK ME BABY! Haven't heard that one for awhile. It was awesome!
Then he grabbed his stool and asked someone to "bring me the shirt." Someone handed him a white shirt. He said "I understand there are rumors going around that I wear the same shirt every night. See how I have a white shirt in my hand, AND I am also wearing one? I DO have more than one shirt. Maybe I'll auction this one off at the end of the night..." to which everyone screamed I WANT IT! He never did do anything with it but I thought it was hilarious that he brought it up. After intermission, he came out wearing a black shirt with a v-neck but no buttons (a pull over), and it had designs in the fabric. It looked fantastic.
As others have mentioned, the audience was really quite rude in Red Bank. There was just so much chatting between people and everybody running up to the front with their cell phones. Every so often a lone person would wander right up to the stage while David was talking or singing and expect his attention right then and there. Many times David asked that the chatting amongst people stop, and that people not yell out to him, because he can't understand them anyway. It didn't help, they persisted.
He also had said outright "This is not an autograph session" but later conceded as so many people were shoving things in his face. It's amazing to me that people would rather have an autograph than hear him sing.
So finally David had to say it. "SHUT UP! I DON'T KNOW A NICE WAY TO SAY IT." After saying that, the majority of the audience applauded, and the chatting toned down a bit. Through all this he did manage to keep his cool pretty well.
There was a girl in the audience who pretty much demanded to get to the front and have his attention. She had told David the night before that it was her birthday. This night, when David saw her, he said "did you lie to me about it being your birthday yesterday?" and she said "yes, TONIGHT is REALLY my birthday" and he said something like "yeah sure". She had pushed through everybody and was right next to me (I had a front row seat, I didn't push anybody anywhere!) so I said NO IT'S MY BIRTHDAY and David laughed and walked to the other said and said "Oh now it's EVERYBODY's birthday." Throughout the night this pushy girl kept returning to the front and rudely stepping right in front of everybody else, and her friends were pointing at her. David said "why are you pointing to her?" and they said "because she adores you." I thought WHO DOESN'T!!! And it sucks that being pushy gets you attention from David.
When David announced the band members, I noticed that he announced Frank as "Musical Director." I hadn't heard him say that before, but very cool for Frank!
David loved the Count Basie Theatre where he was performing and mentioned it several times. He said if they ever wanted him back he would definitely come. He talked about living in NY until he was 5 and then in NJ until he was 11, and how it was a special place for him.
At the end of the night the audience just kept yelling for more, so we DID get an encore, which was a touching version of Cry, which David dedicated to his father. When he came back for the encore, he was wearing a light colored jacket over his black shirt.
It was a wonderful show and David is looking great. I want to say a quick hi to all the great people I saw at the shows - Agi, Ann, Shirl and Anthony from UK; Nancy, Ann, Diana, Barbara C, Barb Pazmino, and of course Joyce, my BFF. Hope to see you all again soon.
And thanks Gail, for giving me and Donna a call on Friday night, I wish I could have chatted more, but the driving was stressing me out!!!
Love Carol
