The Metal Files

Lionel Richie came back to Austin last night to play the Austin360 Amphitheater at the Circuit of the America’s racetrack.  Last time I saw him was during SxSW 2012 at the Moody Theater.  Last night’s show blew it away even though the SxSW show as a bit more intimate.

CeeLo Green opened up and put on a good set with a great mostly female back up band.  The drummer was incredible.  He did a lot of covers, but only seemingly doing parts of them.  He did Rod Stewart’s Do Ya Think I’m Sexy but not the whole thing.  Mid set, he tells the band to just jam on something and everyone looked a bit confused and just started jamming.  We could see CeeLo side stage sitting down and he looked sick.  You could tell something wasn’t right.  After a few minutes, he came back out, put on his game face and finished the set.  It was enjoyable, I was surprised.

Then came Lionel.  He’s still got it.  His voice sounds amazing and he’s in physically good shape.  Running and jumping around.  Add to it his between song banter, obviously scripted, but still effective.  He’s a pretty funny guy.  They were about to go into Endless Love and he said he had invited Diana Ross to come sing it with him.  The band motion towards side stage and started clapping and had everyone duped that she was coming out.  He stated that the two of them had actually never performed the song live together but I found a vid or 2 of it on YouTube.  They played the song, but only the first verse and chorus with the crowd doing Ross’ parts.   And while the whole set was great, highlights for me were Truly and Sail On.  They closed with We are The World and I’m pretty sure there was a typo on the lyric banner overhead (see pic below).

It was a fun show with a gorgeous friend.  Can’t wait to see him again!