Review: Josh Groban Straight to You Tour

It goes without saying, I think, that I loved the concert. He is absolutely amazing in everything... singing, instrument playing, audience interaction, sense of humor, emotional outpouring... everything. I found myself sitting, literally, on the edge of my seat, hands clasped under my chin, holding my breath, eyes glued to the stage, for most of the evening. Yes, you could say I was enthralled!

I went with my sister, who is also a huge Josh Groban fan, in fact she is the one who, years and years ago, said to me, hey, you should listen to this kid (because he was barely 20 at the time, maybe even just 19) who has this freaking amazing voice! It took me a year or so to believe her, but she is the one to blame for this Josh thing I have. So I took her with me.

Anyway, instead of going through the event minute by minute I thought I'd just list the highlights, and yes, even some lowlights, or maybe I could call them "baffling moments."

Highlights:

**When he came out from the back of the arena, and hopped onto a middle-of-the-floor stage. (A stage which I was actually closer to the the big stage.) I loved how the whole floor audience, stood up and turned around before that even happened. Yes, most of us knew that he was coming from the back, but it was funny to see that.

** The song Alla Luce del Sole... it was AMAZING! I was blown away. I didn't think he'd sing this one again (sang it last concert and all) but he did and wow.

** All the times he ran up and down the aisle right by us. Sadly, I was not on the edge, so no high five for me, but it was fun to be only four people away from where he was and see him close up. 

** The song Broken Vow, with just him, the piano and an awesome trumpet solo! That was so cool! I loved it!

** Much audience interaction and heckling! (By him, not the audience.) He took three questions people texted before the show, and he answered their questions but not before he made TONS of fun of each and every one! What a joker he is. He also brought up several people to sit on his "couch" while he sang a couple of songs. Lucky lucky people. 

** One of the questions someone texted was, "Will you sing some Kanye West tweets?" which of course he did. That was fun!

** The emotion in the song War at Home was intense. It was a definitely hold your breath moment. And then when he sang Machine, wow, another emotional powerful intense song! It's so awesome to feel so many different emotions from him for all the different songs.

** His shoes. Too cool. I thought maybe he'd be wearing boots, but no, it was stripped tennis shoes instead.

** Tons of piano playing this time around. I thought, now, do I want to see his face or his hands when he is at the piano? We had his face, and I decided that was the best choice.

** His opening act was a dude from America's Got Talent, Elew..... he was a crazy fun piano player. I was worried a long whether or not I'd be happy with my seats... 14th row on the floor, but when he played and I could see the funny facial expressions he made, I decided that it was good enough. However, when Josh came out mentioned that the first few rows were in the spit zone, I thought, yeah, spit zone would have been better! :)

** When he sang You Raise Me Up and had us be his gospel choir back up.

** The intermission song by the band... Live and Let Die by Paul McCartney. Awesome! Here's a video someone else captured of that, taken from pretty much near where I was sitting and shows you my view of the stage. What do you think? Not bad, huh?

** The ever present drum solo! Yes! I love it! Here's a video of that (not taken by me of course) all the wonderful facial expressions included.

** Every song, every single one, even Galileo!

Baffling Moments:

** Why was the AC not working? Wow, it was hot, and while I was sweating to death just sitting there, I thought what poor Josh, in his jacket, running around, and singing his heart out, must be feeling. He was hot! Ha, yeah, both uses for the word! THAT hot AND the other hot! :)

** On the way home we realized that he "forgot" to sing Hidden Away! Weird! Why did he not sing Hidden Away? The most popular song from this new album? Baffling.

** And why did he come out and sing Play Me by Neil Diamond for an encore? That was strange to me. It was awesome, and I loved it, but for his encore? Very baffling.

** Why did the floor section, full of adoring fan members, not scream and give standing O's more? Maybe it was the heat? Hmmm.... baffling.

** Even if this show was meant to have an intimate feel, why were there no jumbo-trons? I felt bad for the people in the nosebleeds, because they were pretty much were there to listen, and not see, unless they brought their binoculars. I'm so glad I could see him, really really see. Know what I mean? (Just found this video of a nosebleed "view." That would have been sad.)

** Why do they make us wait for 1/2 hour between the warm up act and the actual act? Oh my word, that was a long 1/2 hour! I guess they've got to mess around with the stage a bit, but still. Do they really HAVE to? And isn't it interesting how long that 1/2 hour is, but how very very short the following two hours are? Yeah, that's baffling, but not really. Here's one thing I did during the wait:

** I was frustrated with the whole camera thing. So, they say you can't take them in, but everyone has something... a phone particularly. But does that mean I can't take my good camcorder? So, to be safe, I didn't. Which meant I tried to use my phone, and my daughter's camera. Nothing worked, but everyone around me was getting good shots, so I didn't get it. So yeah, that was frustrating and baffling. Finally, I gave up and just enjoyed looking with my own eyes, and not through a camera and enjoying the songs instead of stressing about capturing the moment.

Here's my one not bad picture:

Here's my one very bad video... a teeny little bit of Changing Colors (opening song) before I gave up realizing I was capturing a little ghost Groban and that the camera wasn't going to do any better:

Afterwards, we decided to be true fangirls and went to find the back door where he would have to come out. Once there, we realized we are NOT true fangirls because we had no idea what was going on. Everyone was forming this HUGE line, and I thought, why a line if he just comes out and we wave and say bye and thank you etc.? I didn't get it. Finally, I decided he must often come out and actually talk to people and sign things. We didn't have anything for him to sign, so we didn't get in line, but just hung out on the edges hoping to just see him some more and watch him interact with everyone. We waited and waited. And we wondered, was this for real? Is he really coming out? What is really going on here? My sister said, what if they are fooling with us and they sneak him away? After nearly an hour from when the show ended, a dude came out and confirmed her suspicion and said, "Josh is not coming out, he has to be in LA in the morning, and he has already left!" WHAT? How did he leave and we not notice? I think he must have been in one of the normal looking cars that just pulled out and left and we had not a clue! This morning he tweeted that he landed in LA, so I think perhaps he actually flew, instead of riding the bus, so maybe he truly did have a plane to catch. Anyway, so that was kinda funny, and we were sad, but oh well! It does seem like they could have come out and told us a little sooner though. So much for being true fangirls.

Okay, well, I think this has gone on long enough, and I think anyone reading this understands that I absolutely loved this concert, even the baffling moments! If you ever get the chance to go, go. Even if you aren't a huge fan, you will be upon going to his concert, I promise.