Many Wonderful Surprises
by lyrix on 11/30/09Abravanel Hall - Salt Lake CityRating: 5 out of 5There were a lot of wonderful surprises at this concert. The first part of the concert David sang a few of his pop songs and then segued into a couple of ballads to help set up for the Christmas portion of the show. David was more talkative than I have ever seen him before. I think that speech he gave at a Women’s conference really helped him out. My favorite part was when he was remembering the other time he performed at Abravanel Hall. He said something along the lines of being a little kid and you could not get a single word out of him, and now tonight, you couldn’t get him to shut up.
His song choices of "Fields of Gold" and "The Riddle" were beautiful. So heartfelt and soulful, both performances just soared. I was not expecting "Ava Maria" or "Riu Riu Chiu" to be performed tonight and was delightfully surprised that they were part of the concert. Especially "Ava Maria", when they brought in a partial orchestra, composer Kurt Bestor to play the piano and the SLC Children’s choir, it was unbelievable. If “The Riddle” soared – then “Ava Maria” transcended to celestial heights. The audience was transfixed. I’m not kidding, there was no sound except for the performance. Another thing that impressed me was when David mentioned about how concerned he was performing the song "Pat-A-Pan in french, a language he is not familiar with. He stated he wanted to respect the language. It's a rare occurence where you see the performer respect the music, lyrics, the musicians and his audience, and David did exactly that tonight. It was wonderful to experience that concert, and I wish that I could relive it again.