Last Thursday I went to see Kelly Clarkson’s 2012 Stronger tour in Jacksonville, which was given to me as a Christmas present. I have been stanning on and off for Kelly since 2002 when I first heard her on American Idol and immediately fell in love with her and rooted for her to win the whole time (I say on and off because I went through a time in 2006 when I was really burnt out on her, but that’s behind me now!). I knew she wouldn’t disappoint, as the entire show was flawless. But here’s what made it even better – my seats were supposed to be pretty far away, but one of the employees at the venue gave me new tickets to the downstairs part and it was REALLY close to where the stage was! Why they did that, I don’t know, but hey I’m not complaining!
First, Matt Nathanson opened up. I wasn’t very excited for him as I don’t really care for his music, but his voice sounds great live and he knows how to interact with the audience. In between songs he would joke around, he said something about the castle in The Little Mermaid turning into a phallus (obviously he had to clean that up though since there were a lot of young girls there). I will say though, his set got boring very quickly. I almost fell asleep to be honest and to stay awake I went on Twitter on my cell phone and bitched about how he was curing insomnia, but yeah, when Matt Nathanson ended I was quite relieved. If you’re a fan of his please don’t take offense to any of that, I think he’s talented but his songs aren’t my thing.
We waited FOREVER for Kelly to start her set, but I was expecting that so it didn’t bother me that much. Every concert I’ve been to started like half an hour after it was supposed to. Then suddenly the lights got dark, and on the screen there were a bunch of headlines that said things such as, “Kelly Clarkson is fat”, “More Kelly Clarkson music leaks”, “29 and no boyfriend”, etc. Kelly came out and started singing “Dark Side”, and the crowd went INSANE. That song sounds just as great live, it was definitely one of the best performances of the night. Also, photos of Kelly don’t do her justice – she looks even more beautiful in person.
After “Dark Side”, she continued her set with two of her biggest hits – “Behind These Hazel Eyes” and “Since U Been Gone”. After that, Kelly started talking and she sounded sooo sweet and friendly! She kept saying thank you for coming here and you could just tell she was so appreciative of her fans. Then she said, “During my last tour I didn’t perform this song and I got in a lot of trouble for it,” then she started performing “Gone”. Another one of my favorite performances of the night was the song she performed next, “You Love Me”. Her vocals just sounded SO amazing. That song seriously needs to be a single. Now, I knew she was going to cover Florence & The Machine’s “Heavy In Your Arms” and Carrie Underwood’s “I Know You Won’t”, so the night before the concert I listened to both songs on Spotify. I liked Carrie’s song but Florence… not my thing. Kelly’s version of “Heavy” though was FLAWLESS! I loved how dark it sounded. What made that performance even more awesome was that she got really close to the stage and of course everyone, including yours truly, was taking loads of pictures. I’d post mine but 1) They didn’t come out great because of the lighting and 2) I didn’t get as many pictures as I wanted because stupid me forgot to charge my camera before the concert, so it ended up dying on me.
Now that we’re on the topic of lighting though, that is one of the two critiques I have to give about the show. The people who did the lighting did a really crappy job. There were parts in the show where I had no idea where Kelly was because they flashed the lights in the wrong direction. In fact at one point Kelly had to say, “I’m right here!” As for the other critique I have to give, well, she didn’t perform “Sober”. However, the fan request song that night ended up being one of my absolute favorite songs from All I Ever Wanted – “Save You”. After she performed that, she said to the audience, “That was from All I Ever Wanted, right? I have so many albums I forget which song is from which!” So she told the audience that because she’s been releasing music for ten years and has so many albums, she’s going to do a medley of a song from each album, which, by the way, I thought was a great idea. Whenever I see a recent setlist from someone who I’ve grown up with like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, I get disappointed that they didn’t pay as much attention to their earlier catalog. Kelly ended up doing a medley of “The Trouble With Love Is”, “Walk Away”, “How I Feel”, “I Want You”. I’m probably going to get slapped for this, but I don’t really like “Walk Away” that much. When I first heard it when I got the Breakaway album, I liked it a lot. But when it was released as a single it got SO overplayed here and I was, and still am to an extent, really sick of it. I have to say though, I really love how she sang it live. Maybe after hearing it live I’m not so burnt out on it like I used to be. “How I Feel” is a good song but I would’ve preferred her to perform “Maybe”, “Haunted”, “Can I Have A Kiss”, or of course “Sober”. I was never that crazy about “I Want You” and would’ve preferred “Long Shot”, “Cry”, or the title track, but I thought it was cute how she had the audience sing along to that song.
Kelly then went all ~country~ on us, as she performed a cover of Carrie Underwood’s “I Know You Won’t”, off her 2007 album Carnival Ride, followed by “Don’t You Wanna Stay”, which was really cool because they had like a hologram of Jason Aldean singing the song on the screen. Then she performed two Stronger tracks – “Let Me Down” and “I Forgive You”, both of which were AWESOME! I noticed a lot of people got really excited over “I Forgive You”, and I even overheard a girl singing it after the show, so maybe it is a good single choice after all. I still want “Dark Side” next though. Next, Kelly performed “Already Gone” and “Breakaway” but with different arrangements. They still sounded fantastic though, especially the former. Next, she performed “You Still Won't Know What It’s Like”, and honestly that was the first time I ever heard that song. On the screen they showed kids from Haiti and that and the song broke my heart. It’s such a beautiful song and her vocals were so heartfelt. I have no idea why that didn’t make it on Stronger, or at least the deluxe edition. After that, she performed “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)” and “My Life Would Suck Without You”, and the crowd went crazy over both of them, moreso the former though.
The encore songs were “Never Again”, “Because Of You”, “Mr. Know It All”, and “Miss Independent”. She performed a PHENOMENAL piano ballad version of “Never Again”, I got really excited during that too seeing as that’s like my second favorite song from her ever after “Sober". After the performance she said, “I was pissed off when I wrote that song but I actually think the ballad version sounds more pissed off than the original loud version!” I thought that was cute. Speaking of cute, there was a young girl in the first row and Kelly brought her up on stage because she thought she was so adorable and she saw her singing along to every song. So during “Mr. Know It All”, she had her sing with her. It was sooooo cute! I also loved the transition from “Mr. Know It All” to “Miss Independent”. Overall it was a fantastic show and I had a great time. I’d love to see her again… but first I need to see all my other favorites live.
