Post by Kari on Feb 16, 2006 2:07:26 GMT -5
INXS Is Pretty in Vegas: A Concert Review
by Paris Cosby -- 02/16/2006
Paris headed down to Las Vegas recently to catch INXS in concert. She's here with all the details of the show. Even though it took her over 24 hours—and two missed flights—to get home, she says she'd do it again in a heartbeat. Read on for all the details!
Everyone knows what a big fan I was of J.D. Fortune during the filming of RockStar: INXS. I am still a huge fan, although now I refer to them merely as INXS and not "J.D. Fortune and INXS" as some people do. I was extremely excited to learn they would be performing in Toronto and I quickly scoured the Internet to find out when and how I could get tickets. You can imagine my frustration when I learned that the tickets had sold out before I even had a chance to glance at them. INXS did add a second show and that one went just as quickly. I blame the promoters for booking them at Massey Hall, which only holds about 3000 people. You would think they would have booked a bigger venue, considering J.D. lives in Toronto.
I was a little annoyed, however there was a solution! Basically the only venue that wasn't sold out was The Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas. Problem solved. I was off to Las Vegas. And wow, was it worth it!
First up was Marty Casey and his band, Lovehammers. They were better than I expected even though it's rather hard rock. Marty did well working the crowd. He fell back into his mad conductor routine a few times – which I found highly entertaining. And, I must say I found myself humming along to "Trees" when they performed it. The Lovehammers have released a CD as well so if you're a Marty fan, you can click on it in the righthand column. The band is high energy rock and they're quite good. If you like that type of music, it's definitely worth a listen. After Marty and Lovehammers were finished, I have to say I was a little disappointed at the amount of time it took to get INXS on the stage. It was at least 45 minutes to an hour. I didn't think it should have been quite that long but I busied myself by checking out all the people in the audience. I was really surprised at the average age of the fans. It had to have been at least 45. I even saw a man that was about 70 and an older woman (perhaps in her 60s) who just went wild when INXS came on stage.
I have to say I went a bit fangirl myself when they arrived. Okay, I went a lot fangirl. Hell, this is INXS and I was just so proud of my boy J.D. up there with them! Now I can't name every single song that they sang but they did do five from the new CD. They were also the ones that I really hoped they would do. Minus "God's Top 10," which I wanted to hear but they didn't play.
They opened with “Suicide Blonde” and "Devil's Party," and they also did "Don't Change," "What You Need," "Never Tear Us Apart," "Afterglow" (one of my favorites), and, of course, "Pretty Vegas." That one got the largest cheers from the audience. There were more but I can't remember and I wasn't taking notes. I was being a fan.
J.D. was sick for the show though and had trouble with some of the notes. His voice cut out at times and he was overshadowed at one point by the back-up singers and the rest of the band. It didn't make that much of a difference though. He did well for how sick he was rumored to be. I would go as far to say that the sound of the band and his voice were even better live than on the CD. It just has a quality to it that's almost like molasses. It's thick, smooth, big, dark, and controlled; it's just a really great sound.
As for the rest of the band, they were great as well. Garry was the most entertaining, getting the crowd into clapping and singing along. He smiled for almost the entire show. I was sort of surprised at how little they moved around the stage though. Kirk and Tim changed places once but that was it. Other than that, the five of them pretty much stood where they always stand. J.D., on the other hand, was all over the place. He even went right up into the stands and I swear his security man was ready to have a panic attack. He was grabbing at the back of J.D. and trying to shove him back on the stage while fending off fifty screaming fans trying to get a piece of the new lead singer.
The encore was longer than expected as well. They sang three songs for it—after, of course, changing into some other outfits. I was amused at how J.D. started out in a leather coat and shed clothing as the show went on. He went through three or four shirts by the time the concert was over.
At the end, the six boys huddled in the center of the stage for big hugs all around. This band seems like a complete unit now. They had a great time performing and at the very end just before they went off stage for the night, Tim said, "Thank you... You're so pretty, Vegas."
It was a great show! I'm so thrilled that I traveled clear across the continent to go see them. I went to Las Vegas to see "Pretty Vegas" live! First I had to travel over the border to Buffalo and then catch a plane to Atlanta. From there I headed to Las Vegas. On the way home, I missed two airplanes (don't ask) and it took over 24 hours but I'd do it again. Now, if someone could just get me a ticket for Toronto...
Paris loves INXS even more now and is a bit of a nut for going that far for a concert but says it was entirely worth it. You can e-mail her at to pariscosby@hotmail.com.
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