I had so much difficulty getting tickets to this much-awaited concert. I had to rely on some imagination to get them, and the risk paid off! Got some great seats for me and my wife right across the stage.
Maybe because the tickets were hard to come by, the seats also filled up very slowly. By 8pm, our row was still empty except for us. It was past 830 when the lights were dimmed and the concert of the year (so far) was underway!
The set started very strongly with
"If I Never See Your Face Again." Immediately following this lively song was their Number 1 hit
"Makes Me Wonder". Then barely had we recovered when Adam unexpectedly segued into my favorite of the first album
"Harder to Breathe"! Very exciting! I had hoped he would sing this song later into the concert, but here it was!
Adam had a very strange speaking voice, very high-pitched, almost mousy. But for some reason, it really fits into their songs very well. Some less familiar songs followed:
"The Sun," "Can't Stop," "Secret," and "Shiver." But these were no less well-executed. The last was a really driving hard rock song with heavy guitar work from the guys. My ears went numb there.
The next song was again immediately recognizable with its opening note:
"Wake Up Call". Followed by the familiar chords of
"Sunday Morning." The audience really went wild with this. But it was just a warm-up for the next song.
"Won't Go Home Without You" was my most favorite hit of M5, and, as it turned out, my absolute favorite number of the whole night. The audience participation bit usually makes me cringe for some artists, but this for this song, the audience fit right in, with Adam doing harmony. This was the highlight of the whole night for me.
"This Love" followed and turned out to be the end of the regular set. Very good beginning, but somewhere in between some discordance between the instrumentals and Adam's vocals ruined this song for me. But I guess that did not matter in the bigger picture.
For the encore, they performed three songs. First, they did the upbeat
"Little of Your Time." Then they went for their biggest love song
"She will be Loved" (which Adam prefaced with the perfunctory Tagalog "Mahal kita").
Finally, Adam introduced
"Sweetest Goodbye" which started so quietly and ended with a wild light and guitar show. Very strong ending number!
Awesome live concert this was! It was quite short, only one and a half hours I think. But still, I felt it was one of the best I have seen in the recent years. It was expensive but well worth every centavo.
Maroon 5 is composed of Adam Levine, James Valentine, Jesse Carmichael, Mickey Maden, and Matt Flynn.
