Calgary review, Isaak leaves fans smiling at Jubilee Options

[Silversands]

By Heath McCoy, Calgary HeraldOctober 13, 2009

Chris Isaak performed Tuesday at the Jubilee auditorium. Attendance about 1,625.

CALGARY - With an artist like Chris Isaak it's so easy to get so caught up in the man's uber-cool persona that you forget all about the music.

He's the retro, rockabilly hepcat with smouldering good looks that bring to mind Elvis and a romantic falsetto that recalls Roy Orbison. The suave heartthrob who rolls around with supermodels in his videos. He's the likable charmer of TV's The Chris Isaak Show, whose conscience appeared to him as a nude playmate on a revolving bed.

And he pulls it off not with arrogance but with a sort of down-to-earth rock-and-roller-next-door appeal.

Music or no music, you have to appreciate the guy.

But catching his Tuesday night gig at the Jubilee Auditorium, with his music centre stage, took that appreciation to a whole new level because the 53-year-old singer-songwriter from California really does cook in concert.

Among their opening numbers, Isaak and his five-piece band swung the evening into high gear with the old-school rock and roll of Mr. Lonely Man, the singer duckwalking across the stage in his black and red Nashville duds.

The romantic croon of Let Me Down Easy and the gentle swoon of Somebody's Crying were also winners.

Early in the set Isaak, an effortlessly charismatic frontman, began to promise the audience a "family show," before his drummer gruffly interrupted him, calling out: "Bulls---."

The group then proceeded to prove their genuine rock chops on the sizzling Speak of the Devil, a fine cover of Cheap Trick's I Want You To Want Me, and the country rocker Beautiful Homes, which built its way up to a full-fuelled jam session.

However, the sexy love ballad is still Isaak's most lasting signature and he showed folks why that is when he rolled out his biggest hit, Wicked Game, near press time. His band played it with class, capturing the tune's every dreamy nuance wonderfully, while Isaak's voice infused the song with all the emotion and tenderness that made it such a smash back in the '90s.

But let us return to Isaak's aforementioned aura of cool, because his persona is most definitely a key ingredient in his live show, which saw fans enjoy themselves immensely at the Jube.

For one thing, Isaak knows how to tickle a crowd's collective funny bone.

When he asked the crowd how many in attendance had caught his show previously, he followed up with an apology, thanking people for giving him "a second chance." He then pledged that this time around his band was "clean and sober."

"Well, pretty much sober," he added cutely.

Later he swaggered his way through the crowd for a version of Elvis Presley's Love Me Tender, flirting with the women in the balconies as he worked his way up to the top, where he feigned being winded and made a joke about the altitude.

Across the auditorium there were grins as far as the eye could see.

A born showman is Mr. Isaak and in Calgary he delivered a terrific one.

hmccoy@theherald.canwest.com

http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment...9267/story.html