The story from the front line.. well pretty close to the front
anyway. My daughter and I were within knicker lobbing distance from Will,
but we both restrained ourselves. However, a girl near to us was holding
hers up in the air, because there was a picture of Will on the front! Being
so near the front we didn't really appreciate how many people were there,
but it must have been thousands!
Will started with 'Ticket To Love' which will hopefully be on the new CD,
then 'Cruel To Be Kind'. Then sang a couple of tracks he said were
definitely from the new album, a dance track and 'Alibi Love' which sounded
like a single. He did FANTASTIC versions of 'Roxanne' and 'Fields Of Gold'
and an absolutely stonking version of 'Superstition'! This DEFINITELY
sounded like a number one single.
I especially liked the acoustic segment of the concert (a la Will
sans chapeau), he gave us 3 laid back versions of 'You And
I', 'Fields Of Gold' and the opening of 'Light My Fire' which soon
filled out as the band came back on stage.
'Over You' started cool and jazzy then came over all Earth Wind and
Fire'ish. What was that other new jazzy track he sang? It
sounded 'really' cool. The one about chilling out. Fantastic.
Evergreen gets more soulful every time he does it and was a good
track to close with, except of course the chants of "We want Will"
which followed Will and 'The Band' as they left the stage, which
made an encore mandatory. Will of course obliged with a more
regular take on 'You and I' that really brought the house down.
Best moments? I have to say for me it was when he rocked
through 'Roxanne' and 'Superstition'. Absolute barnstorming floor
fillers! Incredible! Jammed full of energy. The sort of stuff that
was glaringly absent from his first album.
Wow! Will has got such a GREAT voice, he could sing the phonebook
and make you cry. I say elsewhere on my site that I think he is the best British
pop singer since Dusty Springfield and last night he PROVED it!
Why would a 50 year old married guy with four kids, like myself, want to start a Will
Young appreciation website? Well, I think the guy is just brilliant. I was expecting the UK's
'Pop Idol' tv show to produce just a few wannabees trying to step beyond mediocrity, I didn't
even bother watching it until they reached the last ten singers, but not only did the show
produce some genuinely talented young pop idols, most obviously, Gareth Gates, every pre-teens
heart-throb and the terrific Darius Danesh, but... genuine stunned surprise...
'Pop Idol' also produced a 100% solid gold
SUPERSTAR! Will Young is definitely the best voice in popular music for decades!
Will has a charming, winning personality and is accepting his fame and star status with
humility. Vocally he is relaxed and comfortable in many styles of music, but favours, Soul,
Motown, Jazz and
Swing.
Personally, because of his outstanding vocal ability and his versatility I would rate him as
the finest pop and soul singer Britain has produced since Dusty Springfield
!
Will's first single, the double A sided
'Evergreen' and
'Anything Is Possible', is great, but formula pop is hardly suitable material for such a
talented songsmith. The first CD album from the show
'Pop Idol'- The Big Band Album' is in the shops and features Will on two tracks,
the beautiful, lilting, 'Beyond The Sea' and the understated and romantic, 'I Won't Dance'.
Most pop idols wait years to get their life stories printed, but Marie Claire Giddings has just
written a Will
Young book and then Will's second single
'Light My Fire' got to number one!
'Light My Fire' got to number one in Italy too and was in the charts there for over 6 months! On the video front, Will's fans are buying truckloads
of the Pop Idol
VHS, the
Pop Idol DVD and Will's own concert DVD 'Will Young - Live! and the great new DVD "Will Young - Live In London'!
Controversy raised it's head when a so-called 'newspaper' threatened to 'out' Will as being gay.
He bravely decided to come out and the news was met with dismay by some of his ficklest, sad
teeny girl fans and a few male fans, who were probably afraid of being ribbed by their mates,
but most people had the far heathier and maturer attitude of 'so what?' Hopefully, his sexuality
will have no impact on his well deserved success. However, it would be easy to get the impression
that his management were NOT as confident in their star. They had also signed up close second
place Gareth Gates and in seeming panic about Will's 'coming out' they rushed out Gareth's first
single. Officially, this was supposed to be a cunning ploy to stop superstar George Michael from
hitting #1 with his newest single. One question... "Why would they want to do that???" As well as
cutting Will's stay at #1 short, this blatantly egotistic ploy against George Michael could
easily be mistaken as an attack on a second gay pop star. Releasing Gareth's record so soon hit
Will's sales and knocked him off the #1 spot weeks before he would have otherwise have been. To
make matters worse, Gareth's single
'Unchained Melody',
ALSO contained HIS versions of 'Evergreen' and 'Anything is Possible', so people who had not yet
bought the songs might be tempted to buy Gareth's versions instead. It seemed to this writer
that the management of 'Pop Idol' were trying to re-write history! Will Young was the clear
winner because of his obvious talent, yet was being robbed of his well deserved prize.
The cynical amongst us might point out that Will would not have won 'Pop Idol' if he had come out
'before' the show's final. This may be true, but underlining our society's failings does not change
the fact that the best man won. Gareth is very talented, but Will is AMAZING.
