This weekend's treat from the Universal Pictures's owned YouTube channel, 'The Shows Must Go On' was the recording of Michael Ball's 2011 concert in Birmingham,. 'Heroes'.
The title of this concert tour is in deference to the music legends that influenced a young Michael Ball throughout his formative years, and some of his choices are a little surprising; however, to Ball, they are all music heroes and he pays wonderful tribute to them in this 2 hour concert.
I have said it before of Ball, and will undoubtedly say it again, but he is a consummate performer and shows himself to be very genuine and humble. His genuine love of performing and chatting with the audience is clear, and he never once appears stand-offish or 'starry'!
In this concert he sang a whole plethora of 'pop' hits from, mostly the 1970s, starting with Bonnie Tyler's 'Holding Out For A Hero', which segued nicely into Everett's 'Bad Things' and Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'. For me the best of his pop repertoire came next with three back-to-back slow love ballads which he sang with simple emotion; 'Let The Heartaches Begin', 'Play Me' and 'Misty'. Ball then took us through a few more upbeat numbers from the likes of Tom Jones, Billy Joel and Bary Manilow which ended his first half.
After the interval and he started with a selection of the songs from Muscials which he has been involved in over the years. Starting with two songs from 'Sunset Boulevard' he quickly went into the one song that will be forever inextricably linked with him, 'Empty Chairs At Empty Tables' from 'Les Miserables'. Following this was another Les Mis song, a Sweeney Todd medley and finishing this set with 'Jeckyll And Hyde''s 'This Is The Moment'.
Ball then went back to popular song including his own Eurovision Song Contest entry, 'One Step Out Of Time' and finishing the concert with Elvis Presley's 'Can't Help Falling In Love (With You)'.
Three encores later and running about 20 minutes overtime, the concert was over. But neither Ball nor the audience minded the overrunning, and watching on my computer screen this morning I certainly didn't mind either. A hugely charismatic and very talented performer who even now, 10 years' later is entertaining me and many others with his madcap antics on Twitter during these dark times of coronavirus and lockdown.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 10/1/21
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