Claymate No More

The Clay Aiken chapter of my life has officially closed. I came to this realization during the Los Angeles leg of his long-anticipated nationwide tour. He hasn't had a public concert in California since his 2004 Christmas concert, and I had been looking forward to seeing Clay perform his non-Christmas songs. Alas, his show proved to be quite disappointing.


Clay was at the legendary Greek Theatre. (08/04/07)

He almost exclusively performed the cover songs off the new album, with only two Clay Aiken original songs ("Lover All Alone" from A Thousand Different Ways and "Measure of a Man" from his first album). Otherwise it was all other people's stuff. He never sang "Invisible," "The Way," or "This is the Night." His final song of the night was Celine Dion's "The Way You Love Me," which is a great song. However, I wouldn't exactly suggest that song as a closing number unless your name is Celine Dion.


Clay onstage. (08/04/07)

Plus he wasted so much time with his two cheesy medley numbers. One was a medley of TV show theme songs. And another was a medley of "cool" songs that he would normally not sing (like "Baby Got Back," or Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back"). So stupid.

I also had an issue with his between-song banter. Most of the time, good performers will fill the moments between songs with funny stories or other interesting anecdotes. For Clay, most of his between-song banter comprised of joking around with his backup singers. It was fine for a little while, but after a while, it started to feel like the audience members were outsiders in all these inside jokes.

It was a truly disappointing concert.