April 24th, 2003

University of Dallas
Irving, TX

Review by: David Mallari

What a way to end a stressful day. A non-stop day with two classes to teach in
the morning, then break for lunch and finish assignments for class at 6:30.
Supposedly we were going to get out early, but early in this case meant getting
out at the scheduled time for a class that normally runs over.

Nonetheless, I jetted out of Denton as soon as class was over and looked at the
clock. 9:24. Driving along these highways, I made it in time to catch one and a
half of Adam Stewart's final songs--and I'm terribly ticked that I missed it.
Emily Amazes Me was the closer, a song which left me thoroughly amazed. Adam is
a really nice guy, too...wish him the best of luck out in LA.

A few minutes after Adam's set, Ari weaved his way around the tables to the
stage. He opened with a couple of standard faves, When Everything Seems Wrong,
then Come Home, and then Monsters. I think it was in the Come Home intro that
he talked about how he had made eye contact with a guy at the earlier show
during the song, so he was going to avoid all eye contact with guys for the
song, which got a laugh from the audience. (He repeated this warning before
several of the other songs in the set as well.) After Monsters, he brought out
one of his latest additions to the repertoire, a song that he refers to on his
website as "The Song Norah Jones Should Sing Instead of Me Because it Would
Sound Better." (I think a shorter title might be something like, "Tell Me That
It's True" or simply "I've Got You." But that last one might be too Sonny and
Cher-ish.) While I do think Norah would sound great on this song, Ari's buttah-
like voice did the song quite well, I think, and personally I'd rather hear Ari
perform it than her. His upper range is simply amazing; as a singer in my
shower and in my free time, I am totally jealous of the beauty and simplicity
of his falsetto.

Caught Up In Your Love was next, followed by some witty banter about how many
times he's revised the song Consistency (I believe this was revision number 18--
a little irony I didn't get until someone behind me pointed it out. It was a
long day, like I said); it still sounded as good as any other version I've
heard. Somewhere in his set, something in the equipment went wrong, but nothing
too major that tragically ruined the sound--and Ari just kept playing, making
adjustments after the song. Other highlights included the "J-Lo as inspiration"
bit as an intro to Fascinate You, a flurry of expletives directed toward record
execs regarding the exclusion of "Over You" from any album, a cover of
Radiohead's High and Dry, and Easy Together. If memory serves me corretly, I
believe he introduced this song by saying he was listening to Sade and The
Police at the time he wrote it, and then proceeded to segue into snippets
of "Smooth Operator" and "Roxanne" mid-song. He closed with Pound for Pound,
and I'm glad to see he's bringing Pound for Pound out at shows, complete with a
funny introduction about getting his ass kicked by his girl for some
reason...I've loved the song since I got the EP, but didn't get to hear it live
last time and haven't been able to find any live recordings of it. See the
setlist section for a complete setlist.

All in all, 14 songs, over an hour of incredible music, as always. Especially
impressive is that it was his second show of the day--in a matter of hours,
even! I kept forgetting that, as his energy level didn't seem any different
than when I had seen him before. Ari never disappoints, even when up against
tough distracters like rowdy college guys screaming at a game on television
about 15 feet away. It didn't bother me much, though--for those of you there, I
was the Filipino guy in red in the front, a bit off to the side, strumming my
air guitar and singing with most of the songs.  Sorry...what can I say? I just
get really carried away and lose myself in the music.

And also as usual, Ari gladly stayed after the show to sign autographs and take
pictures with those who wanted them--even those with whom he avoided eye
contact during certain songs in the show :-P , and even though he had a long
drive to the Big Easy ahead of him. He said that he would be back in June or
July, after taking a bit of a rest after 8 months on the road. Hopefully, he'll
headline again rather than opening for another band, but any Ari is good Ari.

-Dave Mallari

::back to reviews::