July 8, 2012
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Concert Review: SEAL

Casino Rama, Rama, Ont. - July 7
By Jane Stevenson, QMI Agency


Seal performs at Casino Rama in Ontario. (Photo by Peter Turchet)

RAMA, Ont.-   The powerful combination of Seal's physical charms and his strong, soaring voice is impossible to ignore.

The striking, sexy, tall and muscular 49-year-old British singer-songwriter more than proved that as he got the audience fully committed to his show at Casino Rama on Saturday night.

The turning point came about half-way through the hour-and-50-minute concert after Seal, backed by a crack eight-piece band including two horn players, had given the gamblers in the audience one possible explanation for remaining seated.

“Super glue in the seats,” he had joked.

“Now is the time to prove me wrong,” said Seal, before launching into an older dance song called My Vision and the crowd finally rose up to dance and remained firmly under his spell from that moment on.

There was no turning back as he headed into another older uptempo song, The Beginning.

People flocked to the front of the stage with their arms outstretched hoping that Seal - who sometimes played both acoustic and electric guitar - might reach down, grab their hands, look into their eyes, and sing directly to them, something he did early and often.

It was a heady experience watching Seal strut his formidable stuff, tilting his hips, gripping the microphone, raising one arm up in the air, jumping up and down on the spot, waving both arms wildly over his head with a big grin on his face, or freestyle dancing.

His God-given grace managed to make all of it look effortless and authentic.

Age certainly hasn’t seemed to slow him down.

“1963 baby!” he gleefully confirmed of his birth year, when he told the crowd he was turning 50 next year.

Seal first dramatically appeared in silhouette against white lights in an all black - a leather jacket, form fitting long sleeved shirt, pants with a gold wallet chain dangling from one pocket, and boots - as he opened with the older song If I’m Any Closer before following up with his first ever hit song Killer from 1990.

He eventually lost the jacket to make his wildly expressive movements easier to convey against the polished backdrop of slick lighting and seven split video screens that showed imagery ranging from a lightning to flames.

And oh my, could he move.

It got to the point where I started running out of adjectives to describe his style - inclusive, uninhibited, vulnerable, imposing, and confident, all at the same time.

All this from a guy wearing sparkly black nail polish.

“I watch football when I get my nails done,” he explained.

Because Seal is touring in support of his second album of soul covers, Soul 2, from 2011, he wasted no time in getting to material from that with Back Stabbers and Love T.K.O. and later Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, Let’s Stay Together, and a soul medley that included Here I Am (Come And Take Me) and Knock On Wood, and the first encore song, I’ll Be Around.

But his own gems stood out in the end including Prayer For The Dying, Kiss from a Rose, Crazy, the lesser known dance song, The Right Life, Secret - which he said he wrote for his daughter (he split from supermodel wife Heidi Klum earlier this year) - and the uptempo show ender Amazing, which basically summed up the night.

 


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