#990 Bruno Mars in SLC

Oh how I love me some Bruno Mars! When I found out he was coming to play in Salt Lake, I closed the door of my office and bought tickets as soon as they were available. I ended up with seats in the 33rd row on the floor and I was pretty excited about it. I think I bought the tickets in March, so it was a long wait until August 2.

It was totally worth the wait, though! T and I got to the venue pretty early and just watched the people. Well, I watched the people and T looked at Twitter. There were a lot of women and young ladies and kids. But there were also plenty of people that were my age or older. There was a definite buzz in the air, not quite like the buzz at the Taylor Swift show, but a palpable energy.

The opening act was a band called Fitz and the Tantrums. I don't know their music and the first time I heard of them was when I learned that they were opening for Bruno Mars. I thought most of their songs kind of sounded the same, but the lady who is in the group, Noelle, she had a great voice and a lot of energy. There were actually two songs they did that I liked. The first was one of their songs (I don't know what it was called, but it seemed slightly different from the rest) and the second was a rocking cover of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" originally by The Eurythmics. The funny part of that was when they called the audience to sing the chorus. Only us older folks were singing along. T had never heard the song. It is 30 years old.  Oh for God's sake. I'm old.

Fitz played for about 45 minutes, then there was some downtime while the stage was set up for Bruno. That took about 30 minutes. There was a pretty curtain the covered the stage that had gold palm trees on it.

Palm trees are my favorite tree; gold palm trees are the best, especially when Bruno Mars is behind them.

When the lights went down and the music started, the screaming was piercing. I couldn't even hear Bruno sing the first few lines of the first song, "Moonshine." The screams mellowed out and the sound of the music was very good. There was a big screen behind the band and it had footage of giant parrots flying around. Strange, but cool. After "Moonshine", he kicked it up a notch with "Natalie" which is a great song (you know how much I love it if you read my post about new music the other day) followed by my other current favorite "Treasure." The arena became a giant dance party of swaying, sweaty people. It was so hot down there! We were singing and dancing and have a great time! So much fun.

Bruno can play the guitar. In some places, he kinda sounded like Prince. Bruno can dance. Sometimes he busted out some James Brown-like moves. Most of all, Bruno can sing. He is fantastic.

There was a part of the show that was called "The R & B Breakdown" in which Bruno offered advice to the men in the audience about how to win a lady, especially if you happen to be on a stage with a band. He was pretty funny about it. The whole place was laughing. Each of the band members took a turn trying to win the heart of a lady in the front row. My favorite line was from Bruno. The lady was wearing a tour shirt with Bruno's name and face on it. He asked her name (which I'm sure he could not hear) and then said, "I haven't introduced myself. I'm the guy who's face is on your shirt." Silly Bruno.

The band was great. There were three horn players, a bass player, a guitar player and a guy who raps and sings with Bruno. There was also a drummer and a piano/keyboard player. They danced around and were very energetic. I loved that they all danced in time, together, like the cool groups from the old days, like Earth, Wind & Fire.

This picture isn't from the SLC show, but they were like this a lot.

But mostly, there was Bruno Mars. He was terrific. Cool and funny and energetic and singing his head off. I swooned a little here and there.

I found this cool pic from the SLC show on the Fitz and the Tantrums website, posted by their lead singer Noelle.

Bruno ended the main part of the show with his big song "The Way You Are". The song was on the radio just about all the time when it first came out and I got kind of tired of it. But...hearing it done live in concert was phenomenal. The whole place was singing and the words are just so sweet. At the very end, he turned up the house lights and the cameras panned the audience as we all sang to Bruno and the band. It was awesome.

He did two songs for the encore, but he started the encore with a drum solo. Yes, he plays the drums too. He's musical. The encore was "Locked Out of Heaven" and then "Gorilla." That's kind of a naughty song, but it was an epic finale, complete with pyrotechnics and a raised platform and a huge gorilla on the big screen. Freaking fantastic!!

I've been listening to Bruno Mars music all day. I would definitely see him again. I had a great time, and I think that T did too.

Here's the review from the Salt Lake Tribune if you want to read what someone else has to say about the show.