All right, I’m half joking about the age and gender of the audience at last night’s Daughtry gig (I said half). Daughtry—the band and the man— put on one of the more crowded and certainly one of the more energetic shows I’ve seen this year, solely from a crowd’s perspective. Why is that?
Daughtry isn’t exciting in terms of musicianship, really—dude isn’t about to get Zappa on your ass—but there’s a tried-and-true popularity attained through reality TV. When you listen to a record, you know what a musician sounds like. When you watch "American Idol," you know the sound of a man like Daughtry, as well as his style, his choice of cover songs, his behavior in front of an audience. (Funny example: Even when seated on a stool, Daughtry still sort of lunges; see the photos.) The chances for disappointing fans are fewer. Then again, so are the chances for surprising them.
Pictured: Chris Daughtry, sans knit cap. Click here for photos from Daughtry’s gig at The Paramount Theater.
But, for the Daughtry crowd—teenage girls mixed with tattooed women and really muscular dudes—being familiar with his type of music went a long way. I survived nearly being trampled by girls that swarmed Will Thomas Band for autographs in The Paramount’s lobby following the band’s opening set. And while a good number of the crowd knew Thomas’ music, he probably won a few new listeners based on a sound that sounds unmistakably like the band Daughtry.
As for Daughtry’s set, I stayed for half of it before a prior commitment (O.K., The Dark Knight) forced me to leave, but the aforementioned band and dude delivered what the people already knew they wanted—a 13-song set of singles and a cover of "Helter Skelter" that I wish I’d heard. (I was behind the soundboard and could see the setlist, which was amusing to me in a perverse way. Spoiler alert!) But the new Batman totally ruled, as did Hans Zimmer’s score. Besides, I knew how the Daughtry show would end.
But that doesn’t mean I know the whole story—what’d you think? Is "live Daughtry" the same as "’American Idol’ Daughtry"? Can you enjoy a band as much if it sounds exactly like another band? Or, for patrons of The Rant: Should rockstars wear knit caps in the summer?
