Adam Lambert – Auckland Town Hall January 22, 2016

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Adam Lambert, talent-show runner-up and ersatz Freddie Mercury, managed a rather difficult task last night, shoehorning an arena show into a theatre-sized setting.

The last time Lambert was in town, a year and a half ago as Queen’s latest jobbing frontman, he played the Vector Arena; his management, presumably, decided that he couldn’t quite fill the Vector on his own, but this appears not to have stopped Lambert from putting on an arena-style show in Auckland’s Town Hall.

Kicking off a few minutes late (there were, I heard, problems with ticket scanners; the audience were late being admitted to the venue), and after opener Melanie Martinez, a sweary, J-Pop Lorde in a baby-doll nightie sang some questionably infantilised-sexualised lyrics about Mrs Potato Head over spiky, angular rhythms played by two backing musicians in matching bear-ear hats, Lambert clomped out onto the small Town Hall stage in a black-and-white Sailor-Moon-esque costume with knee-high white-leather Doc boots, and began to sing. A pair of costume changes notwithstanding, he sang for an hour and a half, stopping to addresss the Auckland audience only twice during a show that took in Lambert’s earlier, funkier numbers, his more recent and more ponderous material, and a surprising selection of covers (of which more presently).

Lambert has, there’s no denying it, a quite superb voice. He was a huge success with Queen because he brought a not inconsiderable vocal talent to bear on some of the finest songs in the rock canon. And right there was one of the biggest weaknesses of last night’s show. When he’s got the songs to sing, Adam Lambert is an outstanding singer. Give him a Queen song, and you’ll find few, if any, equals. But his own material, written by any number of different songwriters-for-hire over three albums, is of considerably less consistent quality.

Lambert tried to tell the audience, in the first of two attempts to engage with his fans on a personal basis, that “the Original High tour is a journey, and that’s the angry stuff.” The “angry stuff,” the half-dozen or so songs he opened with, songs like Evil In The Night or Ghost Town, are by-the-numbers modern pop-rock, entirely agreeable tunes made interesting by a remarkable vocal delivery. But the songs themselves are a little unremarkable, and the overall experience is, in the end, Poor Man’s Robbie Williams (he even has a song called For Your Entertainment, for pity’s sake!) — excellent singing, uninspired songwriting, very little charisma.

Indeed, Lambert’s lack of charisma, his almost absolute failure even to attempt to engage with his audience — a devoted audience, even given several dozen “A Night At The Opera” t-shirts — was quite odd; he carried on, seemingly oblivious, even as three or four loud bangs, explosions almost, came from the PA system at various moments in the show. The man can perform, but the show felt a little cold, a little clinical, a little too choreographed. The lighting, the dancers, the costume changes — these all work well in an arena setting, where last night’s show really belonged, but in a theatre like the Town Hall, something more personal, more intimate is required, and this Lambert failed to provide. My neighbour came with me — she’s a longtime Lambert fan, and saw him play with Queen in 2014. She enjoyed the show, she assured me, but when I suggested, after the second costume change and Lambert was wearing gold-foil trousers with his braces down by his hips, and a black singlet, that he’d transitioned into a thinking woman’s Justin Bieber, she allowed that, yes, maybe he had. But the closing songs of the set, Fever, and Trespassing, despite the look-how-street-I-am posturing, were among the highlights, Lambert tapping into a little of the funk and the energy that clearly lives within him but which was rarely on display last night.

And then there’s the covers. There’s nothing at all wrong with singing a few of your favourite songs from other artists; it’s how Lambert did it that was worth passing comment on. Mad World, the Tears For Fears track that helped him to near-success on American Idol, went unremarked. Fair enough; he’s made the song his own, perhaps, enough that he doesn’t feel the need to mention the fact that it wasn’t written for him. But then, just a few songs later, he played Let’s Dance. His band tore through the song with a passion and energy that warranted the enormous cheer it earned, but Lambert — oddly, I thought, very oddly — made no reference at all to David Bowie. He and his band deserve praise for having the song so tight and sharp — it was added to the setlist after David Bowie died, less than a fortnight ago — but the fact that it was, clearly, added as a tribute to a figure who must, surely, have been a huge formative influence on Adam Lambert without a single acknowledgment of the source of the song seems most peculiar. Similarly, set-closer Another One Bites The Dust, slightly hurried and without the hint of menace and snarl that bubbles under the surface of Queen’s original, came and went, segued into from Trespassing, without a mention of the origins of the song.

An odd show, then. His audience loved it; of that that there can be no mistake. I heard a woman tell her friend as I left “Best show — ever!” Perhaps she’s a more dedicated fan that I am; perhaps she needs to see a few more shows. But to judge from the cheers and screams I heard from the floor, especially during the second half of the show, perhaps this was not a show for the uninitiated. He was good; he should have been better.

Steve McCabe

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Adam Lambert Set list:
Evil In The Night
For Your Entertainment
Ghost Town
Runnin’ / Chokehold / Sleepwalker
Underground
Rumors
Lucy
After Hours
Whataya Want From Me
Mad World
There I Said It
Another Lonely Night
The Light / The Original High / Never Close Our Eyes
Let’s Dance
Lay Me Down
Shady
Fever
Trespassing
Another One Bites the Dust

Encore:
If I Had You

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