It's one thing to know Kelly Clarkson likes to perform without shoes. It's another thing to see the first American Idol winner walk onstage, dramatically backlit, before a Verizon Arena crowd of 4,500 in a glittery dress and bare feet.
Maybe it's just because she's wobbly in heels, but those folksy feet are one reason the extremely personable Clarkson is a star. Her voice, of course, is another.
Clarkson and her seven-member backup band performed nonstop for the last 90-plus minutes of a four-hour concert Thursday night, working smoothly through a set of 19 songs, mostly her trademark anthems of empowerment, interspersed with a few covers. She nearly skipped one song in the set list, but explained it by saying, "Pregnancy brain."
A highlight of the evening was a stretch of songs accompanied by only a piano, beginning with "Piece by Piece," an ode to her husband and also the name of this tour.
Clarkson's doing something new on this tour, giving an "open mic" spot to one singer in each location. Thursday's lucky musician was Drew Erwin, 19, who belted out a slightly angsty love song with his guitar and some quiet background support from the band. "It's fascinating to see how confident people are," Clarkson said after his song, and his comment that he's recently recorded an EP.
A concert tour with four acts is a study in confidence, and in what it might take to get from an open mic to a headline act with 20 million records sold.
Abi Ann, an 18-year-old from Midland, Texas, opened the show with a set of five songs, including "Future Ex-Boyfriend" and "Truck Candy" from her new EP. The singer is still finding her musical identity; she's probably nicer than the persona displayed in some of those songs.
Singer-songwriter Eric Hutchinson of Maryland followed her and did a great job of warming up the crowd with his bouncy songs and bouncy self, joking and getting the audience to sing along with the melodic riffs that open his song, "OK, It's Alright With Me." He zipped through eight songs in 31 minutes without ever seeming in a hurry, and he made sure to let fans know where they could find him: on Twitter, Instagram, and in the lobby signing CDs for as long as people wanted to meet.
Judging by T-shirts and ball caps in the crowd, a lot of fans were there for Pentatonix, the Grammy-winning a cappella group who came to fame winning NBC's The Sing-Off in 2011. The five members have sung together since high school, and it shows; they have distinct voices and strengths, but blend together in an amazing musical organism.
Then there's Clarkson, choosing songs with lyrics she personally believes in, talking with the audience as if we're just across a table from her, and reassuring that if this new song isn't what someone came to hear, well, there'll be a familiar hit right behind it. She's simply, fully, humbly, herself. Bare feet and all.
The tour stops at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., tonight.
Metro on 09/05/2015