The performance of the R&B star in a very well-filled Olympic Hall shows that a concert is also just a show concept. If at least it works…
After 40 minutes something suddenly happens. As the semi-transparent curtains fall to envelop the stage, which until then has primarily had a powerful visual effect, in a shadow play, the front cloth catches slightly on the right and remains creased halfway up. Strange. You wouldn’t really expect that in a well-styled music video. An alienation effect? Or is this, on this Wednesday evening in the Olympic Hall, a live concert after all?
After all, Alicia Keys, one of the greatest R&B stars of the 21st century, has been on a world tour in Munich for a long time. If you can believe it. Because up to this small crack in the production, which until then had been seamless and contactless, it could also be a video projection, an avatar theater in which the main character only says Munich in some places instead of London and Barcelona and soon Monaco and Los Angeles.
Alicia Keys in Munich: A show on screens, also snapped and filmed by thousands
Of course, the immediate reigns at such live events, especially when they are US stars of this caliber, only to a limited extent. The concert is usually just a question of the show concept, geared to the screens, through which a large part of the audience in such arenas only perceives all the details anyway, and, fittingly, the object of all the smartphones that have been drawn out for a long time, which the future mediation of having been there before immediate experience. So in that respect: perfect deal. Except that until then it was too loud and bass-heavy from the stage, which didn’t particularly suit Alicia Keys’ voice, which inevitably had to be turned up even louder didn’t seem overpowered here.
So it remains a mere assertion when the 41-year-old, who together with the band had previously produced an okay continuous stream of old and new songs, from “Karma” to “Show Me Love”, which led to “You Don’t Know My Name” literally shows a minute-long telephone conversation intro in a video-compatible way – when Alicia claims shortly afterwards that she and the around 9000 spectators, who until then have literally been in the very well-filled but not sold-out hall, are having a freaking great time together. But at least the mother of two has already switched from the covered stage to a DJ station in the middle of the arena – and thus heralded the turning point.
Alicia Keys with “Empire State of Mind” and “Girl on Fire” and “Fallin'”… – awesome!
For now it is present. According to the concept of her current album “Keys”, which for once did not go to number one in the USA, she first plays the acoustic and then the disco version of a song, and then lets the audience vote on it – and even if the second versions come completely off the tape, this suddenly has life, it’s live. And then there are all the super hits that finally tear people off their seats. Alicia also pulls through the audience to her New York anthem “Empire State of Mind” – the immediacy doesn’t even detract from the fact that Jay-Z’s rap part comes from a tape and now the maximum number of people in the hall everything snaps and films. The latter is no different with “Girl on Fire” and “Fallin'”, with which this singer celebrated her breakthrough 21 years ago. And it’s the same with “No One”, which follows a nice party highlight with “In Common” and the Crystal Waters cover “Gypsy Woman” at the end, before it continues with the now very live and present-looking “Like You’ll Never See Me Again” and “If I Ain’t Got You” goes into the encores.
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So you could say: It was a half-convincing concert at most – but the show concept worked. Wouldn’t Alicia Keys herself, who is much better to marvel at in the second part with her fine and powerful singing, provide a stale contrast. Because the typical US pathos phrases, with which she tries again and again to authenticate the evening as a celebration of love, a magical night, even if it were our last … – that is so larger than life toned that the reality of this ultimately beautiful Wednesday evening in Munich, on the other hand, just seems way too small. As it is with the radiant show and real life.
And since it’s about a stale aftertaste: The fact that the beautiful Alicia Keys is mostly shown on the video screens in a tracking shot over the entire two hours, which repeatedly scans her body in close-up from below – wasn’t that at least strange the day before yesterday?
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