The first thing I think of when I hear Bobby McFerrin's name is his song "Don't Worry Be Happy". I love that song. As a kid, I used to play it over and over and never got sick of it. To this day, the song still brings a smile to my face.
Last night I had the opportunity to attend a Bobby McFerrin concert at the Ellen Eccles Theater in Logan, Utah. It was awesome. What made it so great? A lot of things, some of which I'll mention. Here's some of my favorite highlights:
*"He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" song-McFerrin changed the key of the song something like 20 times all while alternating the style and tempo of the song. Did I mention he had a band backing him up the whole time? (Keyboard/accordion player, 2 guitar players, upright bassist and drummer) Throughout the craziness each musician kept up with the changes without even blinking an eye.
*Crowd participation moments: Audience members (Jen) singing "Natural women", (Wally) singing some random song and then McFerrin singing Happy Birthday to a girl in the audience. All these were fun moments where McFerrin and the band turned the interactions into special musical moments.
*Encore performance-After a standing ovation McFerrin and the band came back and McFerrin asked the audience if we had any questions for him. Immediately a guy yelled out "Sing Don't Worry Be Happy!" Other audience members cheered for that request (including myself). McFerrin quickly responded "No...I've already sung that 5 trillion times." The audience continued to cheer for him to sing it and he finally consented to sing only the background of the chorus if the Audience would sing the melody. We all sang repeating the chorus twice and then McFerrin stopped it. As short as it was, it still brought a smile to my face.
I enjoyed this concert so much because the whole show felt like one huge improv session. It felt like I was hearing these songs like they'd never been performed before. Thanks Bobby McFerrin for an amazing evening! I hope to catch another one sometime soon. :)
More great McFerrin Videos:
The power of the Pentatonic scale. Given at The World Science Festival.
Bobby McFerrin improvisation with Richard Bona
"Thinkin' About Your Body" Song
No comments:
Post a Comment