Let me preface this by saying that I am a bad Blake fan; he's apparently been doing this version of this performance since the American Idol tour, but I'd never caught up on those videos or anything, so this more recent performance of the song was entirely new to me in its arrangement.
With that said, I give you: Blake Lewis performing "She Will Be Loved" a few days ago (much, much better than on American Idol)
I'm not entirely sold on need for the big long notes he does (with "beautiful" or "falls," for example) at some points, but this performance is gorgeous (I love what he's done with the backing vocals and love the way we get that deep bass or whatever it is near the end). And let me tell you--well, I'm not going to spoil the surprise entirely by giving everything away, but at the very end of that performance, he does something (musically) I didn't see coming that nearly killed me. In a good way. Sadly, we only get seconds of it before the video cuts out, but if you want more from a separate performance, you can check out this video from the AI tour. Or a shady low quality (and shorter) performance here, with a different final note. He also did this song on a TV show, but it's lost some of that magic in that performance. The video and audio's a lot clearer, though. Can you tell I've been going crazy listening to all the versions of this performance since I've found out about it?
It's stuff like this performance that makes me love him. The way he works with music, arranges things--he just gets music.
(And I need a good quality recording of that live performance like you have no idea.)
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3 comments:
I'm there with ya, PPG. GREAT performance. As having seen him live on the AI tour, he uses a vocal thingee that he works with his feet. It gives him the huge echoes and vocal FX. Of course, I have no idea what it's really called, but he mentioned to the crowd that they were allowed to use instruments like that on the show that season. Who knew?
And if you do find a good quality mp3 of it, you know where to find me! :)
Sigh, Blake doing Maroon 5 is always a winner for me, but this is utterly gorgeous. What a waste that the world has failed so far to succumb to his quite considerable charms.
Thanks for the info--I'm really wishing I'd gone to the tour now! You can see his influences a bit (what he does with the backing vocals here kind of remind me of Orbital's live "Halcyon + On + On"--though it's not as dance obviously--which we know Blake loves), but the way he just works with the music, his instincts for it--love it. He's such an artist, in the best sense--he's got a vision...which isn't necessary for my popstars if they're getting great songs from the people behind them, but if they can create them on their own, it makes me all the more sad that the public isn't latching onto them.
It really is (to both comments)! I think my favorite favorite thing about this arrangement, though, is the way he melds it with "With Or Without You" at the end. I mean, GENIUS. No, really--if the Mark Ronson "Stop Me"'s use of "You Keep Me Hangin' On" was exciting, this is at least that. That move, that call on his part, that ear--that just proves to me (as if I needed further proof, right?) that he's an amazing musician and amazing popstar. I literally CANNOT rave enough about the fact that he had the idea to link those two songs.
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