Bublé charms the ladies

MICHAEL BUBLE, E Center, West Valley City, Tuesday

WEST VALLEY CITY — Michael Bublé is a good singer and a great entertainer. And he put on a terrific high-energy show in the E Center Tuesday night.

Jann Arden came out first as the warm-up act. She said she was chosen because she is a fellow Canadian, and her warm sense of humor and soulful singing set a nice tone. She included her hit "Insensitive," as well as her cover of "At Seventeen," and a handful of other tunes.

After a lengthy pause (during which the audience started to get a little impatient), Bublé finally appeared. The evening seemed to fall into, for want of a better phrase, a series of informal sections.

Part I might be called "I'm so sexy!" Bublé started the show with "I'm Your Man," followed with "It Had Better Be Tonight," both from his most recent CD.

Most of the audience was made up of adoring women, and Bublé really played to them. He flirted during and between songs, and at one point he even went out into the audience and let his fans maul him a bit.

"You Give Me Fever," "Me and Mrs. Jones" and other similar selections inspired adoration from the females. As for the men — well, a guy sitting nearby was overheard muttering, "It makes me want to hit him!"

Bublé let the band do an instrumental number, ushering in "Part II," "Playin' with the Band." He did back-and-forth shtick with the horn section, ending with Bublé on the trombone while the trombone player sang.

After using the band for his shout chorus in "I've Got the World on a String," he moved on to "Part III: Slow and Serious." Here, Bublé pulled back for an intimate rendition of "You Were Always on My Mind," followed by "Try a Little Tenderness."

The rest of the concert might be lumped into "Part IV: This is Why We Loved Him in the First Place." Instead of hamming up his sex appeal or playing up other gimmicks, he mostly got down to brass tacks and just put on a good show.

"Everything" and "That's Life," among others, and a run of pop tunes — "Save the Last Dance," "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You" — even got the previously muttering male to stand up and cheer between and during songs.

Of course, it was kind of funny when Bublé sympathized with all the men in the audience who had been dragged there, telling them that they were still masculine. And then he dedicated a song to them — "YMCA"!

---

E-mail: rcline@desnews.com