Michael Buble concert

Michael Buble

A night to remember

Angela Macari O’Looney

The apprehension was over and at last, the long awaited concert had arrived. Months ago, I had been considering buying my tickets to see Michael Buble, whom I had seen in concert back in 2006 in the Point Depot with my Mum. After a lot of organisation and searching for the right person to invite along with me, the big day was here!

On a chilly but dry Saturday evening, Sandra my sister and I headed to the New Aviva Stadium, wrapped in warm jackets and scarves. We got a taxi some of the way and had a glass of wine in a nearby pub before going in, where we were shown to our seats in the West stand. The place is humungous, so I felt a pang of regret when I realised how far from the actual stage we were. However, I had taken Binoculars, so I could zoom in and watch a little closer if I chose. I shared them with Sandra throughout the show and it really helped us enjoy it better.

The warm up act was a band called Naturally 7 that performed soul/ hip-hop songs using close harmony. They were excellent, although when they talked between songs we couldn’t hear what they were saying. Our taxi driver had mentioned this was a problem he experienced at the show the previous night.

The place didn’t fill up until the warm up band were finished, but at around eight, there were very few seats left unoccupied. We noticed that the seating went right up to the roof and thanked our lucky stars we hadn’t ended up there. At eight forty five, the curtain went up, the blasting intro of Cry me a river heralded and out came Mr. Buble himself to a raucous reception. Cool as a cucumber, he sang as if he was among a few friends. Every word of his songs was being sung back at him by the crowd and it was a tremendously emotional thing to be among them, enjoying the splendour of the fabulous band, the amazing lighting, under a velvet blue Dublin sky!


He did all the favourite songs, such as All of me, Crazy love, Heartache tonight, You’re Nobody till somebody loves you, Some kind of wonderful.
I loved the stuff from his last album, but they are mostly covers. So I hoped he’d do a few of his original songs and earlier album numbers such as Home and I wasn’t disappointed. Like the true professional he is, Buble introduced his band individually. This took quite a while and unfortunately most of the wise cracks were totally lost on us poor souls down the back. But I got the gist of most of his words and I noticed how he gave his pianist a big thank you for his involvement in co-writing all Michael’s own songs. My dad who was a musician/band leader always said he judged a true artist from the way they treated their band and in this case, each guy deserved a standing ovation. What a sound!

At one point, the guy on trumpet did a solo and it was virtuoso stuff!
Also they did an instrumental, which would only be appreciated by jazz connoisseurs. Having grown up in a jazz orientated household, I understood what was going on and felt very privileged to be there, listening to the best of the best American musicianship.

I thought it was interesting to see a lot of men enjoying the concert, considering the huge female following Buble has. Beside me, a guy with his girlfriend was singing every line throughout the show and on the other side of my sister, there were mostly couples and the lads were enjoying it as much as their girls. However, being the charmer he is, Michael payed his female adorers lots of compliments and expressed his surprise at the amount of young people in the audience. He asked why they were coming to see him rather than Justin Biber, or the teenage heart- throbs who are currently in the charts.

He did a little tribute to the late Michael Jackson, performing an enjoyable version of Billy Jean and even did a moonwalk up the ramp onstage and some fancy twirls and postures that were Whacko’s signature moves. This got a tumultuous applause.

Lots of enormous screens surrounded the venue. Two each side of the stage, one at the back of it and another on a floating platform halfway up the arena. This was good for those at the back, like me. Despite this, there was remoteness about being seated far away from the heart of the show.

But somebody involved in the production end of things, had made allowances for this and thoughtfully arranged for Michael to walk through the crowd and up onto a podium atop the screen at the centre of the stadium, which was opposite our seats. This was spectacular and Sandra and I were delighted now. The guys who performed support did harmony to two numbers, which Michael did on this platform. I took a couple of photos, but my camera has a lousy zoom, so I used the Binocculars and made the best of the moment.

After a set of about an hour and a half, he finally sang Haven’t met you yet. The whole audience stood up and swayed and sang along with this really popular song. It has such a cheery riff, as do all of his uptempo numbers. Fireworks burst out and lit up the night and not long after this, he finished on a slow number;Hold on. This surprised me. He came back after a few minutes and did three more numbers, ending his last song by taking his mike off and singing out to the vast arena, proving the dynamic power of his vocals. I’m sure there will be some who don’t consider this concert to have been what they’d hoped for. But I had a blast and was just glad that I have the memory, for those cold mornings after I’ve left my little boy to school and am having my me hour with my tea and toast and Crazy Love belting out from my windows media player.