John Legend, Alejandro Escovedo, Kelly Richey shine through mid-week tempest with radically different shows

Musical lightning strikes thrice: Unusual confluence of stellar acts playing Grand Rapids on single night impresses crowds despite stormy weather. (Reviews, photo gallery)

 

The storms that rolled through West Michigan on Wednesday weren’t just of the showers and blustery winds variety.

Scintillating national tours swept into Grand Rapids for a rare convergence of mid-week musical thunder: Grammy-winning R&B artist John Legend at a sold-out Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, rock/alt-country icon Alejandro Escovedo at The Intersection, and blues-rock phenom Kelly Richey at Rosa Parks Circle for the opening blast of the 97 WLAV Budweiser Blues on the Mall series.

Local Spins was there for all three shows, which uncorked a radically different vibe at each concert venue with radically different levels of associated media hype.

For instance, at age 35, the much-ballyhooed Legend already has won nine Grammy Awards, racked up five Top 10 albums, sold millions of records and earned widespread TV exposure. On Wednesday, he entertained a sold-out crowd of 1,900.

By contrast, the Austin-based Escovedo at 61 has flown well under the radar while releasing more than a dozen critically acclaimed albums: He’s never scored a hit single despite being one of America’s most compelling performers and writers, revered by fellow musicians. On Wednesday night, he played for an intensely rapt audience of perhaps 110 in The Stache (aka, The Intersection’s front lounge).

Here’s the Local Spins round-up of all three shows (with photos by Anna Sink, Anthony Norkus and Tori Thomas):

JOHN LEGEND: By Tricia Woolfenden

John Legend’s sold-out performance Wednesday night at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park was not unlike slipping into a warm bath. And that’s not only because of the pruned fingers and saturated clothes concert-goers experienced in the wake of Wednesday’s series of squalls. The evening was just. So. Very. Gentle.

A light-but-steady rain dissolved roughly 30 minutes into Legend’s (given name, Jon Roger Stephens) 20-song performance, eventually giving way to a #PureMichigan, Instagram-worthy horizon. But Legend himself rarely strayed from a consistently gentle approach, favoring a soft — but oh-so-silky-smooth — delivery of his Grammy-winning, Billboard-chart-topping R&B and neo-soul. Backed occasionally by a guitarist and string quartet, Legend delivered a majority of the show from behind a piano, a familiar spot from which the Ohio-born musician has composed a good chunk of his output.

This being the “All of Me” tour, Legend, not surprisingly, selected the hit as his one-song encore to a nearly two-hour performance. The song, which you will hear as the first dance at every single wedding you attend this summer, was a rare rallying point for the appreciative (but oh-so-mellow) audience, who stood for the duration of the number, joining in enthusiastically to Legend’s inarguably romantic proclamation of devotion.

Though drawing heavily from 2013’s critically-acclaimed “Love in the Future,” Legend did explore tracks from elsewhere in his respectable catalog as well as a few impassioned covers. His popular take on Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” was a slowed-down, sexed-up crowd-pleaser. A rousing rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s classic weeper “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was among the most engaging moments of the evening.

From his nimble piano playing to his undeniable vocal skills, Legend certainly lived up to his reputation as one of the standout artists of his generation and genre. And though he’s a bit of a name-dropper (perhaps that’s fair when you inhabit the same circles as Kanye West and Questlove), Legend is nothing, if not charming. The singer poked gentle fun at his own artistic quirks and career, graciously paying tribute to the humble, working class roots that helped to craft him into the “legend” he has now become.

ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO: By John Sinkevics

As Austin’s Escovedo put it from the stage at the very onset, his current tour with dynamic violinist Susan Voelz is about “the songwriting, the songs and the storytelling.”

His 90-minute-plus show was certainly all about that, with Escovedo introducing each song with a tale about its origins – whether inspired by his father, travels as a child or his near-fatal bout with hepatitis C – then mesmerizing the pindrop-quiet audience with spirited, unusually riveting duo renditions of songs from his extensive catalog, including “San Antonio Rain,” “Sally Was a Cop,” “Rosalie,” “Chelsea Hotel ’78” and the first song he ever wrote, “The Rain Won’t Help You When it’s Over.”

(Fellow Austin-ite BettySoo opened the show with a stellar, poignant set of Americana/folk gems that spotlighted her spellbinding vocals and songs from her enchanting new album, “When We’re Gone.”)

Despite the lack of mainstream success, Escovedo told me in an interview last year that he’s convinced that he and his bandmates produce music that is “really special. I love music. I love rock ‘n’ roll. … I never wanted to be a pop star. I wanted to write. That’s all I wanted to do. I wanted to write like Lou Reed. I want to write like John Cale and Brian Eno and Iggy Pop and Ian Hunter.”

And he does that, proving it in inspired, spare fashion in the cozy confines of The Stache. He also paid tribute to Hunter and Mott the Hoople with his versions of “All The Young Dudes” (a David Bowie tune the British band popularized in 1972) and “I Wish I Was Your Mother” (which he performed acoustically at the end of the night, without mics, in the middle of the audience). Those packing the Stache – many of them clearly Escovedo devotees – appreciated the singer’s personal touch and he returned the favor by sticking around long after the show to chat and sign autographs.

(Watch a Local Spins video below of Escovedo and Voelz’s amazing rendition of Mott the Hoople’s “I Wish I Was Your Mother” in the middle of the crowd near the end of the night.)

KELLY RICHEY: By Tori Thomas

The threat of a little rain didn’t deter fans of the ever-popular Blues on the Mall series.

Thousands gathered at Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids amid threatening skies early Wednesday evening for the first Blues on the Mall show of 2014, with Cincinnati’s Kelly Richey Band kicking things off with a bang.

Many had come prepared for an evening of wet weather with rain jackets and umbrellas, and for good reason: In the middle of the first set, drizzle sent a few folks packing, while others stuck around for Richey’s bracing blues-rock sound. Umbrellas came out and the music continued.

Even an eventual downpour toward the end of the set didn’t stop people from cheering at guitar and drum solos, with members of the energetic band churning out numerous jams and using the stage to their advantage. Everyone in attendance seemed to enjoy themselves, and eventually, even the sun peeked through to help cap off the evening.

THE LOCAL SPINS PHOTO GALLERY: John Legend photos by Anna Sink, Alejandro Escovedo/BettySoo photos by Anthony Norkus, Kelly Richey photos by Tori Thomas (Click on photo to enlarge)

Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
Copyright 2014, Spins on Music