Review
A couple of hours before showtime on a frigid February night, Chris Daughtry steps off his tour bus and slips into Denver’s Bluebird Theater, striding through a crowd of early arrivals with his face hidden beneath a black hoodie. He has almost reached the stage door when he’s spotted by a long-haired, profusely tattooed giant in a wife-beater. “Daughtry!” the guy roars. “You rule, man!” Those who have wondered about a Daughtry cred-gap—whether an American Idol third runner-up could be accepted as a true rocker—would have their doubts dispelled by this Conan the Barbarian doppelgänger in full worship mode. The singer reels around, grinning, throws up a double metal horns salute and disappears up a flight of stairs.
When Daughtry finally appears onstage to the thrusting power chords of “Crashed,” it’s clear that, whatever his shortcomings—chiefly, an unhealthy passion for circa-1994 Live and circa-2001 Creed—his rock-star charisma is real and abundant. “You will consume me/But I can’t walk away,” he sings in a baritone rippling with Vedderian vibrato. It’s a sound made for cavernous spaces—for Madison Square Garden, or a cloud-covered crag atop Mt. Olympus—and Daughtry has a series of heroic, arena-size gestures to match: the Two-Fisted Mic-Stand Clutch, the Drum-Riser Karate Kick, The Wounded-Warrior Crouch-and-Caterwaul. The Bluebird is tiny, and with a lesser performer, the pomp would feel silly. But Daughtry executes his heroic moves with perfect conviction and a lack of self-consciousness. By the time he pulls up a stool for a solo acoustic debut of an unreleased song (“I cowrote this with my friend Rob Thomas”), with the club bathed in the twinkling blue-green glow of cell-phone lights, the occasion feels much grander than a Wednesday-night gig at a 350-capacity former porn theater.
Chris Daughtry is a man. But Daughtry—like Van Halen, like Bon Jovi—is a band. “I’m absolutely not a solo artist,” Daughtry tells Blender. “I’m the lead singer of a band.” Daughtry takes pains to cede the spotlight, especially to Mohawk-sporting bassist Josh Paul, whose careening stage presence suggests he’s been watching Flea rather closely. Still, all eyes are trained on the singer, wearing a One T-shirt, designer jeans and generously applied black eyeliner. Dozens of teenage girls are clustered at the lip of the stage, squealing at every bob of Daughtry’s pate and collapsing into a scrum when he tosses his guitar pick after “Over You.” But the pan-demographic, generation-transcending power of American Idol is on display. The audience includes twentysomething rocker dudes, soccer moms and even The Girls Next Door star Kendra Wilkinson (flanked by a burly bodyguard and conspicuously sans Hef), all of whom sing along lustily with every song. Few rockers in history have released a debut album with such an adoring built-in audience, and Daughtry is not shy about his reality-TV past. He reminds the crowd that Denver was his Idol audition city: “It’s great to be back in the town where all this stuff kinda started for me.”
And the truth is, if you look beneath Daughtry’s vocal-chord-shredding growls and dirge-like melodies, you’ll discover a message as relentlessly wholesome as his Jesus-name-checking fellow Idol alum, Carrie Underwood. In song after song, Daughtry pledges fidelity, venerates home and hearth, vows faith in love against all obstacles. He ends the set with his two biggest songs—the hit “It’s Not Over” and the weepy ballad “Home”—a double shot of old-fashioned cornpone sentimentality, dressed up in post-grunge togs. Daughtry takes his leave with a curt “Good night, Denver,” and for five long minutes the crowd stomps and pleads for an encore, to no avail. Then, finally, a bald-headed figure steps back onstage, and as the roar turns deafening, Denver gets what it wanted: more Mr. Nice Guy.
When Daughtry finally appears onstage to the thrusting power chords of “Crashed,” it’s clear that, whatever his shortcomings—chiefly, an unhealthy passion for circa-1994 Live and circa-2001 Creed—his rock-star charisma is real and abundant. “You will consume me/But I can’t walk away,” he sings in a baritone rippling with Vedderian vibrato. It’s a sound made for cavernous spaces—for Madison Square Garden, or a cloud-covered crag atop Mt. Olympus—and Daughtry has a series of heroic, arena-size gestures to match: the Two-Fisted Mic-Stand Clutch, the Drum-Riser Karate Kick, The Wounded-Warrior Crouch-and-Caterwaul. The Bluebird is tiny, and with a lesser performer, the pomp would feel silly. But Daughtry executes his heroic moves with perfect conviction and a lack of self-consciousness. By the time he pulls up a stool for a solo acoustic debut of an unreleased song (“I cowrote this with my friend Rob Thomas”), with the club bathed in the twinkling blue-green glow of cell-phone lights, the occasion feels much grander than a Wednesday-night gig at a 350-capacity former porn theater.
Chris Daughtry is a man. But Daughtry—like Van Halen, like Bon Jovi—is a band. “I’m absolutely not a solo artist,” Daughtry tells Blender. “I’m the lead singer of a band.” Daughtry takes pains to cede the spotlight, especially to Mohawk-sporting bassist Josh Paul, whose careening stage presence suggests he’s been watching Flea rather closely. Still, all eyes are trained on the singer, wearing a One T-shirt, designer jeans and generously applied black eyeliner. Dozens of teenage girls are clustered at the lip of the stage, squealing at every bob of Daughtry’s pate and collapsing into a scrum when he tosses his guitar pick after “Over You.” But the pan-demographic, generation-transcending power of American Idol is on display. The audience includes twentysomething rocker dudes, soccer moms and even The Girls Next Door star Kendra Wilkinson (flanked by a burly bodyguard and conspicuously sans Hef), all of whom sing along lustily with every song. Few rockers in history have released a debut album with such an adoring built-in audience, and Daughtry is not shy about his reality-TV past. He reminds the crowd that Denver was his Idol audition city: “It’s great to be back in the town where all this stuff kinda started for me.”
And the truth is, if you look beneath Daughtry’s vocal-chord-shredding growls and dirge-like melodies, you’ll discover a message as relentlessly wholesome as his Jesus-name-checking fellow Idol alum, Carrie Underwood. In song after song, Daughtry pledges fidelity, venerates home and hearth, vows faith in love against all obstacles. He ends the set with his two biggest songs—the hit “It’s Not Over” and the weepy ballad “Home”—a double shot of old-fashioned cornpone sentimentality, dressed up in post-grunge togs. Daughtry takes his leave with a curt “Good night, Denver,” and for five long minutes the crowd stomps and pleads for an encore, to no avail. Then, finally, a bald-headed figure steps back onstage, and as the roar turns deafening, Denver gets what it wanted: more Mr. Nice Guy.
