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WINNIPEG - Fans may call him irresponsible, but last night at MTS Centre, jazz crooner Michael Buble rose to the challenge of charming a crowd of 11,000.
The B.C.-based Grammy nominee (and multiple Juno winner) has built a career for himself by following in the well-shod footsteps of Vegas staples like Frank, Sammy and Dean, but last night -- with the help of a 12-piece orchestra and some well-chosen standards -- he proved equally adept at pulling off an aces arena show.
Looking dapper in a black suit and tie -- those big puppy dog eyes pointed skyward -- Buble opened with a one-two punch from his new album Call Me Irresponsible, starting with an appropriately distinguished cover of Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man, and following it up with a sexy spin through It Had Better Be Tonight (Meglio Stasera).
The latter tune was first penned by Henry Mancini for the Peter Sellers flick The Pink Panther, so it's apt that Buble took his first break between songs as an opportunity to indulge in some comedy of his own.
"If we could all bow our heads," he intoned sombrely, "and have a moment of silence for all those people who are still frozen out there in the parking lot."
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Judging from the frequent shrieks and catcalls coming from the audience, it was clear the ladies could already feel their temperatures rising, but Buble also promised the men he'd make it worth their while, too.
"Trust me, three hours from now, you'll all be doing this," -- he said, while miming smoking a cigarette, "and saying, 'I love you, baby.' "
Though he paused frequently throughout the night to crack jokes with the crowd, Buble also managed to squeeze a few songs into his 90-minute-plus set, among them sultry numbers (Fever, Me & Mrs. Jones), ballads (Always on my Mind), originals (Home and Lost, which he co-wrote with fellow cut-up Jann Arden), and the title track to his new album, which dovetailed nicely with some stage banter directed at a 10-year-old boy in the crowd.
"Thanks for being here ... you keep me responsible," Buble told the kid. "Without you here, I'd turn into Amy Winehouse so fast."
Truth be told, we could have done with a little more tune-age and a little less tomfoolery, and by the time Buble's trombone player took the mike to poke fun of the singer's reputation as a diva, we couldn't remember whether we were there to watch a singer or a stand-up comic.
But then he knocked out a nice version of World on a String, and we remembered that Frank, Sammy and the boys did their fair share of horsing around on stage, too.
And even though Buble isn't nearly as spellbinding as those greats -- (to be fair, few are) -- his old-school stylings turned out to be the perfect way to heat up another winter's night in Winnipeg.
Earlier, New York septet Naturally 7 opened with a 35-minute set of a capella acrobatics, lending their accomplished harmonies -- not to mention their sound-effects skills -- to Mr Mister's Broken Wings, Phil Collins' In the Air Tonight, and a medley of Simon & Garfunkel tunes.
If you haven't already seen the combo on YouTube, they're worth checking out, especially given their talent for recreating a song's non-vocal elements -- the electric guitar, percussion, and turntable parts, for instance -- sort of like a cross between Boyz II Men and that guy from the Police Academy movies.