I took my Wife and 3 kids to this show, mainly to hear the Rock set. My 12 year old's first Concert ever was the "I" tour and he thinks Todd rocks! Me and my Wife saw the first Tiki tour, and frankly, once is enough.
We got to the Zoo about 7:45. The opening band, the Naddas, played until just after 8:30. They, well, they sucked.
Todd takes the stage at 9:00 with the Tiki set. Now I assume that he has decided to reverse the order of the tiki set and the Rock set to it's logical order...open with the Bossa Nova stuff, then wake up the animals with the Rock set! Unfortunately, the Tiki set was all we got. If I would have known this, I skip this show.
Why let a warmup band play for 1 hour, and cut short the main act?
Todd knew that he only had 1 1/2 hours to play, since the Zoo must vacate at 10:30. Why not cut short the tiki set, and still plat the Rock set??
This show had technical problems throughout, with the bandmembers trying to get their monitor levels adjusted throughout the entire show. Todd actually threw one of his shakers at the sound man at one point! In Espresso, the Keyboards and Drum power went out, Todd says."Oh no, we've lost power...can you still hear us?" and the band plays on...then, a loud piercing shriek, and the whole band stops playing, the Todd says, "keep going, 2nd verse". Todd deserves better than this. I just don't understand amateurish technical mishaps like this. The sound was muddy, and the vocals were never loud enough.
The show ended with Todd seemingly a bit embarrassed.
After the show, we took our time exiting the Zoo...I was curious what other people felt about the show, and was listening to others talking about it...some of the comments were: "God, and he was so good in Ann Arbor"..."Todd used to Rock" "Disappointing ending". Needless to say, many were disappointed.
This show was very well attended with what must have been 3000 + people, including a lot of kids. The Lincoln Park neiborhood has always been a good area for Todd with the Park west there also. By the end of the show, I estimated that about 1000 people had already left. The exits started to get busy about 10 minutes into "Born To Synthesize" which is enjoyable for about 7 minutes, then drags out way too long.
Todd's voice was ok, but he seemed to have trouble hitting the high notes, even in falsetto. His banter with the audience consisted of Ricky Martin, and numerous animal references.
I do believe that this was the first Todd show that I've seen where he never once uttered his famous "Thank You", nor did he introduce the band!
Here is the set list:
I saw... Influenza Can We Still... I Wouldn't Have Made... Fidelity Never, Never Land Love Is The Answer Born To... I'm So Proud Ooh Baby Baby I Want You Espresso America Drinks and Goes Home Dream...Personally, I would have traded 1-1/2 hours of tike, for 45 minutes of balls to the wall Rock!
Oh well, as we Chicago Cubs fans say, Maybe next year...
John
