This inkblot has a connection to David Archuleta, believe it or not. (No, it’s not pad thai splattered on the dashboard during a stick-shift driving lesson, but good guess!)
What do you see when you look at it? Does it represent David’s passion for music, as strong as ever? Or exploding and fading away? Do you see him working hard for his fans leaving little time to tweet or blog? Or do you see him pulling away from his fans, tweeting less because he’s moving on? Do you see someone growing and maturing, focused on putting one foot in front of the other toward his dream? Standing still? Taking two steps back?
Just like the ink blot above, all of us can look at the same set of circumstances, read the same tweets, listen to the same songs and get completely different meanings from them. I see a David who’s doing exactly what he’s said in interviews, writing, working on developing his sound so he can present material to a label and take it to the next level. Others see the opposite, think he’s disillusioned with the music industry and is pulling back, way back.
Even during Idol, I remember David had that affect on audiences. After I first heard “Shop Around,” I used to visit the Entertainment Weekly and other media sites to read recaps of the show and I couldn’t believe what I read in both the articles and the comments *shudders*. The adorkable David who I found refreshingly real and honest and genuine, others described as “robotic” and “plastic.” What???? Were they watching the same guy??? I couldn’t understand how we could be looking at the same person, listening to the same songs and “seeing” something — someone — so completely different.
Just like the ink blot tests, I guess what we see in David (or anyone else, for that matter) is based on who we are. Do we project what we want to see? What we need him to be? Or what we’re most afraid of? None of us can really “know” the guy, of course. But what we can do is listen to what he tells us and sings to us and writes for us and enjoy the ride.
For me, it will be tough to top last Thanksgiving … ever. Looking back, I can hardly believe what I got to do last year:
This….. Joannie Rochette + David Archuleta = MKOP (esp. their hug at the end 🙂 … vid: Archiedorable )
Then, a short drive away, this… (chatty extra-credit David FTW!!! … was this the very first “audience participation” Elevator?) (vid: pastelpastelpastel)
… and this (to lady in window overhead: “What are you eating btw?… but you’re chewing something … you’re making me hungry” *dies* … “Would it be rude to ask who’s the oldest person here?” (Mike K. raises hand) *dies again*) (vid: pastelpastelpastel)
I am beyond grateful for that whole weekend, for David and his amazing music and spirit and for all you lovely people. *group hug*
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend, everyone!
p.s. and thankful for vloooooooooooooooooogggggggsssssssssss … new writing sessions FTW!!!!!!
More info: A little friend of mine Berkley wanted to sing for all of you. haha. Also just wanted to talk about a road trip I took this week which was pretty fun. Going to Okinawa, Japan next week which will be way cool!
Tags: David Archuleta road trip God Bless America little girl Berkley fall Okinawa Japan Foster Festival San Luis Obispo Pacific Coast Highway Morro Bay Dapo Lady
This is ridiculous. I can’t get God Bless America out of my head. It’s there at night when I go to sleep and again in the morning when I wake up. Not just any GBA, but David Archuleta’s live version from Arizona. It’s like the red, white and blue earworm from … heck.
I can’t stop replaying it on my iPod either, believe me I’ve tried. I take a break for some TOSOD, some M&S, some Adele, some Pastores, but then I need to hear it again. And again.
Why on earth do I even have an American patriotic song on my iPod??? Makes no sense. I love my U.S. pals to bits but I do not yearn to change my citizenship. I don’t even listen to Canadian patriotic songs — I don’t think we actually have any. It’s just not our thing. (Maybe just one.)
But that’s just it, the way David sings GBA, it doesn’t sound like a patriotic song to me at all. It sounds like a love song. A poignant, intoxicating serenade of love to his home sweet home: “stand beside her and guide her through the night with a light from above.”
When I googled the exact lyrics, two things surprised me. First of all, that it was written by the legendary Irving Berlin (“Blue Skies,” “What’ll I Do?” “Cheek to Cheek,” “White Christmas” etc.) and, secondly, that there are only two verses:
God bless America,
Land that I love,
Stand beside her and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above;
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home, sweet home.
God bless America,
My home, sweet home.
That’s it. That’s all there is. But I could swear, when David sings it, there’s so much more to the song. I get swept up in the soulful swells and runs and the way he builds to the key-change crescendo then softens down to a tender finish. He repeats the verses, but each time takes you on a whole new ride. And that ending. Lethal. The sweet longing in his “hoooome… sweeeet… hoooome” about breaks my heart.
It’s a love song … that’s why it’s on my iPod … that’s my story, Mr. Border Patrol Officer, and I’m sticking to it.
This is my favourite part of any tour. Yes, yes, yes, I know it hasn’t started yet. That’s my whole point!
It’s like an Archu-Advent Calendar… except instead of chocolates every day we get closer and closer to the tour itself with snippets of news and other events and interviews, oh my.
Even the lead up to the Asia Tour, which I had no hope in heck of going too, was sooooo exciting. The shows themselves are just the icing on a multi-layer cake of amazingness for me.
How about you guys?
I’m curious which shows people are going to (or would go to if they could), so please take both polls (forgive me, one is for Canucks only … if we can’t have shows, at least we can have polls, I say, I say!):
I’m adding D’s last tweet to the top of the Tour-re-lu-re-louuuuuurrr!!!! post because THIS is what it’s all about for me, guys. THIS, THIS, THIS!!!! Only David could choke me up and plaster a huge silly grin on my face with 92ish little characters. His joy for creating new music and sharing it with us pops right off the Twitter screen. I don’t care what anyone says, he’s where he’s supposed to be, doing what he’s meant to do and giving us all that he can give … MKOC Tour can’t come fast enough pour moi!!!!!
*************************
More info:
Glad to let you guys know that the Chrstmas shows for this year in the U.S. are now up on DavidArchuleta.com!! Can’t wait to perform for the Holidays this year.
Tags:
David Archuleta My Kind of Christmas Tour touring shows rambler Holiday from the Heart
David Archuleta’s My Kind of Christmas Tour 2011
Visit DA.com for deets. For VIP packages at each venue, please see VIP Nation’s David Archuleta Page! (Alert: Westbury & N.Y. VIPs go on sale today (Tues., Sept. 27th) at 3:00 p.m. ET).
New dates just posted on the OS!
Dec 8 (THU), 8pm: Knitting Factory, Boise, ID
Dec 9 (FRI), 8pm: Blackfoot Performing Arts Center, Blackfoot, ID
Dec 10 (SAT), tba: Heritage Center Theater, Cedar City, UT
Back home for a bit helping my sister out a bit. Thanks everyone for all your help! Went to Washington DC and Arizona this last week and had a good ol’ time.
This vlog really got to me. David dropping everything to rush home and help out his sister. His heartfelt appreciation for all the support, stories and info on Crohn’s that poured in from his fans. His excitement for the Christmas shows and events coming up. Maybe ‘cuz it’s my own brother’s birthday today and I know how much it means to know he’s in my corner.
Oh, and there’s this:
“I appreciate all your guys’s support, all the help you’ve been giving, and just coming out to the … it was fun seeing so many fans last week, and just for … being the way you guys are. It’s been great to see the kinds of fans I’ve been able to have.”
I had the pleasure to spend a little time in Gilbert, AZ, with the lovely SnowAngelz.
As I hadn’t been to a true pop album tour concert since 2009, Ms. TOfan asked me to share my perspective hearing songs from David’s sophomore pop album for the first time live.
Credit to: @rhiminee
This has turned out to be an unparalleled obsession that I have juggled for 3 ½ years. Like most of you, so out of character and not just a little too puzzling. And it demands much thought, soul searching, deliberate choices and development and growth of a new wisdom since I am a mature fan with such a compelling admiration of the music and artistry of Mr. Archuleta.
It is something like a calling. A tap on the shoulder, or maybe, that’s more like a bucket of ice water over the head, haha…but whatever it is, it just keeps me coming back for more.
Credit to: @rhiminee
Spiritual, yes. David’s voice fills all the empty spaces. It is bigger than life. And I suspect it fills the empty spaces in each listener, those empty spaces being so different as we are all distinct from each other in subtle or markedly contrasting ways.
I don’t have a back story of tragedy or struggle that led me to embrace his artistry. I am as humbly ever grateful for the diverse blessings that have populated my life to date. I’m not in search of the meaning of life nor the divine … got my arms around that a while back … one of the positive aspects of being mature, a.k.a., “older.” Lololol.
And so Arizona was in one word, JOY. David appeared relaxed and happy. His command of the stage, the band, the song, the moment, the audience was light years beyond the last time I saw him perform his pop repertoire live.
Throughout the evening, he weaved his innate artistic talent with candor, with energy, with fun, with a wide range of emotion, and with his love of his country. With the growing strength of knowledge and experience of an artist who knows who he is, what he wants, and where he is going. And the resulting performance was a striking balance of honoring the Patriotic event, Constitution Week, 10th Annual in Gilbert, AZ with his music, his message.
Stand By Me – Best performance to date. His last glory note was stunning. The videos don’t capture its full effect.
Heaven – Live before my eyes was a gift, a rare moment. I wanted to slow time and experience it in nanoseconds. David added instrumental segments with the band and made it an unusually strong statement when in prior performances it was more an acoustic set. I think this is a good example of artistic growth, from Heaven on AI when he auditioned, the intervening performances, to this performance, just shows the depth, breadth and scope of change.
Complain – Soulful, so different from the album. “Baby, I can’t complain…” Another striking example of artistic growth.
The Other Side of Down – Light, love, optimism, energy; seeing it performed first time live was something I had been anticipating since hearing it on the studio album. There was a guy and gal in front of me (in their early 20s) who knew all the words and danced to the song complete with choreographed arm movements, obviously they had danced to this before. So much fun.
Star Spangled Banner – He sang the first and fourth verse. Unusual to sing beyond the first… it is such a hard song to sing period. So trust Mr. Archuleta to challenge himself twice on one of the songs that many a superstar has messed up. Authentic, stirring performance. And singing two verses is a subtle, riveting message of patriotism, love of country, and courage. Smart, very smart that.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand, Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation; Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause is just, And this be our motto: “In God is our trust” And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Elevator – I finally got to sing the audience participation part, “Hi-iiiii-iiii-iiiii-iiigh!” It was a blast. And to the Elevator naysayers, one word, pfffffft. It is a song meant for live performance and David sings it with gusto. It is fun, uplifting and definitely puts an extra sparkle in David’s eyes and his audience seems to effortlessly jump squarely in the palm of his hand as he commands them to sing.
His bows from the left stage, then the right, then with hands together at stage center throughout the applause, the cheering, and the high pitched spontaneous, youthful cries of “David, I love you” was a defining moment. Finally taking the time at concert end to allow the audiences’ exuberance and wild appreciation to waft over him as an artist, an entertainer, in warm, embracing waves…taking in rather than giving, letting the audience give back…the smile on his face as he took his bows was poignant…a sublime finish. Message delivered…….on both sides. More of that please! (And, yet again, another display of artistic growth in the recognition of the give and take between artist and audience.)
David’s entire set was great entertainment offering up a range of messages and sentiments for each concert goer. It saturated the empty spaces in my psyche, or — if I wish to be over-the-top maudlin — my soul, with joy. I found myself grinning from ear to ear for 50 minutes. My face muscles actually hurt from that 3,000-second record-breaking smile.
Ah, what the heck, this is such an OTT experience anyway. 😀
Yep, JOY. That sums up the evening for me. FESTIVE sums up the crowd’s overall mood. CELEBRATION underpinned by REMEMBRANCE sums up the whole event. And, enhanced, ever-growing artistic BEAUTY, VULNERABILITY, CONNECTION and STRENGTH sums up the evolution of a young man whose music and career trajectory I have followed with most of you for 3 ½ years.
Thanks to TOfan and Refnaf for your terrific companionship and sharing your journey and joy with me. And for allowing me dual citizenship. 😀
The best thing is that this is but a dot on the artistic timeline…..
…and I will just “keep comin’ back for more.”
— Kizzi
P.S. amAZing soundcheck slideshow from the lovely Platinum Archie. Vodpod videos no longer available.
Just a fraction of the 10,000 ArchuAudience in Gilbert. (Pic: @Shell_eeeyyy)
Before I head to the airport back to my own hooooome sweet hooooooome, I wanted to post real quick to let you guys know how amAZing the AZ crowd was last night.
F.a.v.o.u.r.i.t.e…c.r.o.w.d..e.v.e.r… that I’ve been part of, anyway.
When Refnaf, Kizzi and I (and another fan from Toronto who we’d never met before! … more on that in another post 🙂 ) arrived at the Gilbert Town Hall venue, the crowd looked a little sparse. But 2+ hours of patriotic speeches, pledges, opening acts who hurt my ears and skydivers (very cool) later, and I looked back and the audience had swelled to what looked like the 10,000 mentioned by the MC at the opening of the show.
I'm on the far right ... without a David shirt *hangs head in shame* (Pic: @Jonerz)
And in case you thought they were just really huge fans of the Constitution ( 😉 ), I saw so many David shirts and fans of all ages, races, genders, whole families, it was PACKED.
Everytime the announcer mentioned David’s name the whole crowd erupted in screams and there were no less then four DA-VID! DA-VID! DA-VID! chants throughout the night. Including at the very end when he left after Crush and they immediately started playing music and flashing an image of the Statue of Liberty on the big screen to make sure we knew he wasn’t coming back out for an encore (it looked like he would’ve like to but ran out of time before the fireworks started) … but everyone chanted anyway!!!!!! And then KA-BOOM!!!! Fireworks! Every David concert needs to end with fireworks I think, lol.
@lizmag3's daughter's awesome poster!
The love from that crowd poured onto the stage and warmed my heart. And it was a respectful crowd. Sitting for the patriotic songs (which gave this Canuck chills, baby , chills, btw) but then leaping to their feet for TOSOD, ALTNOY, SBL, Complain (soulful grooovitude to the max, probably my fave of the night, along with …) Elevator (wow, amazing sing-a-long for Elevator, LOOOOOVED that!!!).
The audience never wavered either when the stage went dark (something wrong with the lights) and David carried on with the song and then did some shadow puppets on the big screen when the lights came back on (please let that be captured on video!).
… anyway, more later (hopefully from Ms. Kiz!!! etc.) … wish you could’ve all been there to hear that amazing crowd… oh, and David. 🙂
The Other Side of Down … when the lights went out on David (Jonerzz)
Shadow puppets!!!! … oh, and SBL (thanks, Jonerzz! :)))
Complain (awesome vid & audio!!! thanks, np1107!!)
Gone – Another little piece of my heart – GONE. Stolen by a young man with a killer voice… when he …
… calmly, yet somewhat bashfully, acknowledges his introduction and then humbly ‘tips his hat’ to the people who put so much work into the foundation, he swells my heart with pride.
… sings “Contigo en la Distancia” with an even deeper passion than ever before that leaves my heart breathless.
… extends his hand to help his Mom up on stage for “To Be With You” and fills my heart with warmth at the respect that David exhibits.
… rolls his eyes as Momma Lupita leans over to give him a kiss on the cheek, which makes my heart laugh as he endures the embarrassment.
… makes a major gaff hitting the wrong chord in TBWY and says OOH, refocuses and carries on to deliver the rest of the song with an intensity that has my heart sighing.
… asks the crowd just before he sings Crush “What’s so funny?” after calling Jimmy Smits “a good egg” … it tickles my heart to know he has made friends in the Hispanic arts community.
I gladly give up as much of my heart as needed to be privileged to witness the joy that this young man continues to deliver to me just by being himself.
— Awestruck
Screencaps: FanScene
p.s. Spotted by @stidewell53 in Deseret News this morning!
p.p.s. thanks again to the lovely Elena (@327dauta_WashDC) and her bf for bringing us these amazing vids… may turn out to be the only ones from this event!!!!
To Be With You (including frozen yogurt/wedding song story & Lupe harmonies 🙂 )
Crush (“He’s a good egg” (about Jimmy Smits 🙂 )
Updates from Elena (@327dauta_WashDC) who’s at the Noche de Gala dinner for the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts in Washington, D.C. tonight:
At the vip reception!
We are 2 feet away from stage! Jgadwthbejm!!
Just hugged David! He recognized me! Said what are u doing here. How did u get here?
He is wearing blue shirt. Hair and skin amazing glow!
There is red nord!
When David sings, i will do video and my bf will take pics and record audio.
I was so mesmerized with David i forgot to take his pic. Lol
Next to us is Asaf who is guitar player for David. He joind band last week. So sweet.
He said David will sing contigo, crush and a song with mom! Got videos of contigo, to be with you duet with mom, crush. Everybody were going nuts!
The congressman speaking and said we can let David go without singing again [“can’t” *hopes*]
In line to c David!
Got to talk to David! Took pic with David! Shaking!
Got tons of pics! Omg! I cant believe it! David is so cute!
Photo: @fernandezivette
Twitter buzz!
… @jdbalart: Beautiful performance tonight by @davidarchie in Washington. Bellas canciones por David #Archuleta en Washington.
@jdbalrt: Great listening to @davidarchie tonight. En Washington bella voz de David #Archuleta. http://lockerz.com/s/138526352
… @fernandezivette:
Listening to David Archuletta from American Idol at NHFA Gala. He is so talented! http://yfrog.com/kktlygfj
… @david_roy:
David Archuleta (PLS EXCUSE TYPOS) just KILLED it here, and he could not be a sweeter kid.
Archuleta and your boy DRoy are besties! http://lockerz.com/s/138534108
Related: I AM A GIANT.
… @jdbalrt:
He sang beautiful version of “to B w/ U” backed up by his mother singing harmony! Will try 2 upload in couple days. @davidarchie.
“couple days”???? he clearly does not understand our world 😯
This inkblot has a connection to David Archuleta, believe it or not. (No, it’s not pad thai splattered on the dashboard during a stick-shift driving lesson, but good guess!)
Just like the ink blot above, all of us can look at the same set of circumstances, read the same tweets, listen to the same songs and get completely different meanings from them. I see a David who’s doing exactly what he’s said in interviews, writing, working on developing his sound so he can present material to a label and take it to the next level. Others see the opposite, think he’s disillusioned with the music industry and is pulling back, way back.
SnowAngelz: Canadian fans of David Archuleta 