REVIEW & SLIDE SHOW: Versatile Buble captures hearts in crowded arena
BY JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
6/24/10 at 11:45 AM
"I'm going to give it all to Tulsa, and there will be nothing left for the rest of the tour," Michael Buble said in a Tulsa World interview last week.
Boy, did he.
The Canadian crooner launched his North American tour at the BOK Center with a near-capacity crowd Tuesday night. He melted hearts in women of all ages and demographics, accompanied by a 13-piece band that he brought for the fullest impact of his velvet-voiced heat.
Buble rollicked through his eclectic pop-, jazz- and big band-infused set. Versions of "Mack the Knife," "Crazy Love," "Billie Jean," "I've Got the World on a String" and "All I Do Is Dream of You" whirled the audience into a singing, dancing, clapping, screaming crescendo.
Buble, 34, is a heartwarming amalgam of seeming contradictions: boyish and bombastic, charming and silly, dapper and, at times, darn funny.
"I couldn't be more thrilled to start my tour here in Tulsa," he told the crowd, declaring that he had eaten better fajitas at El Guapo's in Tulsa than he did in Mexico. "I love this place!"
In the seven years since his musical debut, the son of a Canadian fisherman has worked his way to the top of the charts — and venues. This arena tour is the largest of the many he's made through Green Country.
To quote the lyrics that the crooners Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby helped make famous — and that Buble sang Tuesday night: "I've got the world on a string/I'm sitting on a rainbow/I got that string around my finger."
This was his biggest, brightest and strongest Tulsa performance yet.
Buble is easily one of the most likeable and passionate performers in modern music history and has finally blasted past the "karaoke pop" stigma that daunted his earlier years.
He has remastered the Great American Songbook. He's given a flirty wink and a wave toward pop and energetic modern dance rhythms while standing firmly footed within classical and brassy American style.
His final number, "Song for You," was penned by the Tulsa Sound icon Leon Russell and made famous by the Carpenters. Buble made it his own in an emotional rendition that could have been written expressly for Tuesday night's audience.
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Jennifer Chancellor 581.8346
jennifer.chancellor@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
Michael Buble delivers his blend of pop, jazz and big-band sound at the BOK Center, where he started his latest tour Tuesday night. SHERRY BROWN/Tulsa World
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