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Wynonna Judd and Clay Aiken visit area, Black Keys come home in this year's offerings
By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal columnist
Published on Thursday, Nov 01, 2007
It's November and although Thanksgiving isn't for a few weeks, the holiday-season-as-massive-marketing-tool is in full swing.
I got my first holiday disc back in early September, when Toby Keith's new big double disc, A Classic Christmas, came across my desk, officially starting the deluge. Holiday discs also mean holiday concerts, and around here that means eventually a bunch of people will pick up tubas and blat and blurp their way through some of your favorite seasonal tunes.
The season also brings Trans-Siberian Orchestra's annual trip to the area (Dec. 30 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland) to empty folks' wallets while dazzling them with its show and music. And, on a smaller scale, at some point in the next couple of months, there will be shows with the words ''holiday'' and ''spectacular'' in the titles.
There will be plenty more, both big and small, and already a few are lining up besides the TSO, including Wynonna Judd, who will take a break from recording her seventh album to hit the road for holiday concerts, including a Dec. 11 date in Cleveland.
Judd's holiday album, released in 2006, was called (wait for it) . . . A Classic Christmas, and the concert will feature her holiday favorites along with several of her own hits.
Akron's the Black Keys will be playing a rare hometown show (there is probably an ad for it on the opposite or following page) at the Civic Theatre on Dec. 22. It won't have the cozy, cramped feel of a Keys show at the Lime Spider, but it will offer a few thousand more fans the opportunity to see the band without having to suffer through overexcited sweaty armpits excreting on the backs of their necks.
The duo is also trying out a new online ticketing system at its Web site (http://www.theblackkeys.com) that charges about $6 less in convenience fees than Ticketmaster. And you can always go directly to the Civic box office, which isn't convenient at all, and thus charges no additional fees.
Also on the holiday concert trail is Clay Aiken, whose 2004 holiday album was given the more creative title Merry Christmas With Love. The American Idol runner-up (as he apparently will be forever known, even as we collectively forget the guy to whom he lost) will be playing at Cleveland's Playhouse Square on Dec. 17, backed by a 45-piece orchestra. Just as with Judd, the set list will feature holiday favorites and hits. That means fans will get orchestrated Aiken-led versions of Silent Night and other holiday tunes and perhaps a version of Invisible with the strings section sawing away as Aiken sings about how much he'd like to stalk you.
Speaking of Mr. Aiken, I'd like to take this brief moment to be petty and immature and say something to all those crazy, obsessive Claymates (and I'm singling out the crazy, obsessive ones) who a few years ago unleashed vicious verbal attacks on anyone who suggested that Aiken's singing voice and style would be a perfect fit for the Broadway stage.
Let me tell you, I got e-mails from angry grandmothers, righteously indignant 11-year-olds and overprotective fans in Snake's Navel, Alaska, assuring me that I and everyone else, who must hate Aiken, were wrong. In addition, I was obviously a deeply disturbed and unhappy person to belittle their Golden Boy by relegating him to the Broadway stage.
No, they raged, not only was Clay Aiken going to be a huge pop star for years to come, but he was also going to change the entire music industry.
Well, first, thousands of people dream of and work their keisters off for a chance to be in the chorus line of a Broadway play, and big movie stars and pop stars often take stage roles on Broadway. And, though some writers may have meant it as a sort of left-handed compliment, as insults go, that's pretty mild, no?
And, unless Aiken became a secret sixth member of Radiohead, I think he has little chance of changing the music industry.
Would you like to guess what he's doing after his holiday tour from Jan. 8 through May 8? Aiken will be joining the cast of Spamalot on Broadway in the role of the not-so-brave Sir Robin. Director Mike Nichols has already praised Aiken, saying, ''Clay Aiken is amazing beyond that glorious voice. Turns out he is an excellent comic actor and a master of character.''
So I would like to suggest to all those folks (again just the crazy, obsessive ones) to suck down that giant plate of proverbial crow that several of them swore I and other journalists and nonfans would be enjoying right about now.
Go on.
I'll wait.
Would you like some gravy?
Raspberries revisited
I forgot to mention this last week, but the Raspberries, the reunited Mentor power-pop band, will be performing a triumphant homecoming show at the State Theatre at Playhouse Square in Cleveland on Dec. 14.
Last time I wrote about the band (shortly before its big reunion show at House of Blues Cleveland), my general apathy toward it was met with a passionate (but not crazy or obsessive) response from its fan base, including folks who volunteered to educate me by sending me a few discs of music and a great snarky note from Mr. Eric Carmen himself.
Since then the band has completed a very well-received tour from which its latest, the double CD Live on Sunset Strip, released in July, was recorded and also was well received.
I'm still not as enamored of the Raspberries as most of the band's fans (which include Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Paul Stanley and other folks who've made a lot of records), but I have been digging the Who-meets-the-Beach-Boys rock of Side 3, and the live album certainly shows that the band, its chops and its pristine harmonies are still going strong.
I'll also go out on a limb and suggest that the hometown crowd may get a little something extra from its reconstituted power-pop heroes.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
It's November and although Thanksgiving isn't for a few weeks, the holiday-season-as-massive-marketing-tool is in full swing.
Get the full article here.
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