“Body and Soul” Swayed To The Music Of Norah Jones

Posted By silentprincess on March 21, 2005

Soothing.Relaxing.Enchanting. The words that best describe the music of multi-Grammy award winning singer and pianist Norah Jones after witnessing her bang-up performance at a concert with “the handsome band” here in Manila last Saturday in Araneta, Coliseum (with me was the hubby of course .

She sang exquisitely captivating. She sang my favorite songs “Come Away with me”, “Don’t Know why”, “Nightingale”, “The Nearness of You” etc. But as jazz purists would say, her music is not really Jazz. Indeed, hers is an amalgam of different styles of music (jazz/blues/country/folk-pop).

There was no grand introduction for Norah while she and the band entered the stage. She just greeted the crowd with a simple hi and as soon as she started playing, the overexcited crowd gave her overwhelming applause with matching high-pitch screams. She would receive this for every song she sang. In return, Jones would acknowledge it by saying to the audience “salamat“. I sensed her sincerity and euphoric emotions towards the warm appreciation of the audience to her and to her music. “Thank you. I can’t believe it, we’re in the Philippines.. I wish we’ll be here not only for this night…but we’ll try to come back again “, she said sweetly after introducing the members of the band.

The nice thing about this sweet and pretty gal was that she refused to be the only star of the evening. Â She would always apprise the audience who from the band wrote the song before she started singing each song. Truly, even the Handsome Band captured the audience’s idolization with their awesome performance especially the drummer Andrew Borger and the guitarist Adam Levy.

The audience had funny moments with Norah Jones too. Like, when she saw herself on the screen in front of her, she immediately said “oh, I can see myself” and then she made funny gestures of her hand while watching herself on the screen which made the audience laugh. Â She also told the audience about Elmo and her guest appearance on Sesame Street. ”I was supposed to have a date with the letter Y, but he stood me up.. Do you know why??..then she sang, don’t know why, Y didn’t come…then asked the audience again.. “You want to know why he stood me up??..Well, because he was with his X“, she said awkwardly but she sounded real cute, so, we laughed at it anyway. (hehe)

Here’s the deluxe edition of her album “Feels like home” that we bought after the concert. It features Norah Jones’ unreleased songs, live songs, music videos and exclusive Norah interview. We were a bit disappointed that we got the wrong CD. Supposedly, we wanted the one with a DVD on it but we got the one with a VCD. I just consoled hubby and myself that at least we saved 100 pesos for this.(hehe)

But there’s this one who I think was spellbound by her music because he kept on following Norah wherever part of the stage she went and Norah was distracted. Â Smiling, she said “This mosquito keep following me“(bad lamok ..hehe). At my seat, I felt a bit embarrassed to Norah because of that mosquito although I wished I was the mosquito that time.(hehehe)

Her last song on her encore performance was “Ooh Las Vegas”, “.. we’ll perform a special song for you and we only do this for cool audiences..but all audience are cool..but you’re really a cool audience(ano b tlga ate..heheh).. the song is not about Manila..but this is for you anyway” she said blissfully. Â She moved to the music with simple steps but definitely alluring.

Overall, Norah Jones and the Handsome Band had unquestionably an astounding concert here. It’s a good thing that my wooing technique was effective in convincing hubby to watch the concert even if the ticket was a bit expensive. It’s worth it.