Love2Lurk' date='Oct 18th 2012, 5:17 PM
Adam Lambert gets personal at Arizona State Fair
by Serene Dominic - Oct. 18, 2012 12:12 PM
Special for The Republic | azcentral.com
It's not meant as a knock to say that Adam Lambert is the ideal act for the Arizona State Fair. Lacking the oldie pedigree of some of the scheduled performers befitting an arena named Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Lambert is young and current enough to be relevant to the tweens, yet familiar enough to older generations thanks to the across-the-board appeal "American Idol," on which he rose to fame as the runner-up of season 8 (if you can name the winner of that year without Googling it, well, you must be Kris Allen's manager).
>> PHOTOS: Adam Lambert at Arizona State Fair 2012
That was three years ago, an eternity in pop time, a span during which Lambert became the first openly gay mainstream pop artist launched in America through the magic of television, as well as the first to have an album debut in the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart. And he's the first singer to fill Freddie Mercury's ballet slippers on tour with Queen to make perfect sense sonically and sartorially.
And at his State Fair show Wednesday, Oct. 17, Lambert's flamboyance and repertoire of hits and near-hits seemed to hearken back to a time in pop music when Freddie wasn't dead, dance was king and 1999 was still well off in the future.
Bounding onstage with a yellow-and-black-striped mike stand that looked like it had been poached from Stryper's travel cases, Lambert deftly moved from Jacko-inspired pop (his Pharrell Williams collaborations "Kickin' In" and "Trespassing," and his interpolation of "Smooth Criminal" into "Pop That Lock") to Chic-funk (his Nile Rogers collaboration "Shady"), with a good deal of Prince sprinkled in liberally ("Naked Love" and the party-like-there's-no-tomorrow encore "Cuckoo").
It is the Purple One's naughtiness combined with disco-diva haughtiness that forms the basis of Lambert's stage persona. For a guy who made headlines for his American Music Awards appearance where he kissed a male bassist, rubbed a dancer's skull against his pelvis and grabbed the crotch of another, you get the feeling that he toned it down a little for this family-friendly forum. But not that much.
Before performing his Bruno Mars-penned hit "Never Close Our Eyes," he dropped the F-bomb. No, not that F-Bomb. The other F-bomb, which he defended as a term of endearment.
"Only f-----s can say f-----. It's not the word that is bad but it is the intent, if you mean the word with hate," said Lambert, telling moms he was sending the kids home with a lesson.
It was a considerable show of strength that the set contained 10 of the 12 tracks from his 2012 album "Trespassing," which Lambert co-produced and took an active role in writing (although when songwriting credits number more than three, you have to wonder if coming up with the missing word or suggesting a delicious sandwich for lunch gets you a parenthetical notice). No matter, these songs seemed a better fit than the more formulaic hit fare "Idol" winners are usually saddled with before they break free -- like "If I Had You," which sounded tailor-made for Katy Perry, but only if she got in a DeLorean and time traveled to 1985 to perform it.
Lambert's best vocal moment was when he and two background singers sat on chairs, asked for a moody spotlight ("Give me a moon, I don't want to get a suntan") and then got serious for a moment.
"This is a song I wrote about equality and it's for all people." When he launched into his plea for same sex couples' rights, "Outlaws of Love," it was reminiscent of the end of his "Idol" stand when, amidst growing awareness of his homosexuality, he performed Sam Cooke's civil rights anthem, "A Change Is Gonna Come."
"They say we'll rot in Hell, but I don't think we will," he crooned. It made one excited to see not only what he will bring to Queen's repertoire when that union comes stateside, but what could lie ahead for Lambert if he were to follow in the footsteps of Frank Ocean and do an album's worth of strong, pointed material.
But whataya want from Lambert? In show business years, he's just getting started.
http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/music/...state-fair.html
Great article......
Bringing it in........two things that stand out in this^^^^^^^^^^ last paragraph :unsure:
Is this a news leak---->
to see not only what he will bring to Queen's repertoire when that union comes stateside
And this---->
he follow in the footsteps of Frank Ocean <-- IMO..... FO followed Adam's footsteps :)