It’s pretty common to hear music fans grumbling that artists' live performances don’t sound anything like their studio counterparts.
Maxwell’s Saturday-night performance at North Little Rock’s Verizon arena didn’t sound like his studio renderings, either.
It sounded better.
The R&B balladeer's stage entrance was preceded by a giant-screen collage of images that included shots of him when he first hit the music scene 20 years ago ... complete with huge, deliberately mussed-up Afro and prominent sideburns. Saturday, he was GQ-magazine dapper in a pearl-gray suit, but jumped, frolicked, and hip-wiggled like he was still a youthful 23-year-old.
And the audience, numbering 5753, went wild over just about every move and sound he made. Such as when he worked the name "Little Rock” into his lyrics. Such as when he launched into his hits “Bad Habits.” Such as when he dedicated to the married folk his performance of “Hostage," a cut from new album BlackSUMMERS’night. cq
Maxwell's best performance of the night was the 2001 hit “This Woman’s Work” — proof that he can still master those clear, sensual high notes that brought him to fame. “Not an easy song, I must say,” he admitted afterward, saying that he worried a bit about that particular piece before every concert.
He later glided into “Lifetime,” an album-mate to “This Woman’s Work, complete with Martin Luther King footage and other historical images on the giant screen. He sent the ladies into a frenzy by crooning “Lake by the Ocean,” the runaway hit from his current CD. Then he took the show all the way back to the beginning with early hits "Sumthin’ Sumthin'” and “Get to Know Ya.”
Maxwell owed a lot of his spectacular performance to his band, whose members demonstrated their intricate skills via solos during his song “Fortunate.” Other Maxwell oldies but goodies: “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder)” and “Pretty Wings.”
Nearly as popular was the evening’s previous act, 2004 American Idol winner Fantasia, who charmed the audience with her Billie Holiday-Eartha Kitt voice. Her performance included her 2004 album-title cut “Free Yourself," 2011 songs “Collard Greens and Cornbread” and “Teach Me”; snatches of other artists' hits and a magnificent version of Holiday’s “Strange Fruit."