Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Just before the Jonas Brothers broke into their ballad, When You Look Me In the Eyes, at the Saddledome Saturday night, middle sibling Joe put a camera operator to work.
After posing with a couple celebrating their fifth anniversary, he asked a cameraman shooting footage for the Jumbotron to start capturing images of other couples in the audience kissing each other.
As Joe and younger brother Nick traded vocals on the somewhat treacly tune — both sporting those “I-love-you-so-bad-it-hurts” grimaces that teen heartthrobs specialize in — the Jumbotron behind them showed pictures of couples making out.
It was about as edgy as the Jonas Brothers got Saturday night and was in stark contrast to a few nights earlier. On Thursday, Motley Crue drummer and sex-tape star Tommy Lee instructed women in the front to bare their breasts, the outcome of which was also briefly shown on the screen at the Saddledome. Ah, nostalgia comes in multiple shades.
It’s not surprising that the Jonas Brothers’ Saturday night concert hearkened back to the trio’s days as Disney Channel stars whose hook-filled pop songs and ballads eventually turned them into teen heartthrobs nearly 20 years ago. Given that virtually all of the 20-plus songs performed Saturday were met with fearfully loud shrieks of recognition by the audience, it’s safe to assume many of them soundtracked the junior-high lives, loves and heartbreaks of many an audience member.
What was surprising was that the entire show was primarily fuelled by the boundless energy of Joe, Nick, older brother Kevin and their seven-piece backup band. The lightings was simple. There were no pyrotechnics at all. The Jumbotron, when not showing audience make-out scenes, was limited to live footage from the stage. While the songs may not all be classics, the poppier, upbeat ones remain catchy and melodic. That was evident from the moment the brothers bounced on stage to offer feel-good poppy anthems such as Celebrate! and What A Man Gotta Do. S.O.S. and Cool allowed Nick and Joe to showcase some impressive falsetto chops. Year 3000, a decade-old cover the boys did of a tune by British pop-punkers Busted, was a high-energy highlight, while 2019’s groove-filled reggae-lite song Only Human suggests a growing sophistication in their material.
There were some samples of the solo efforts, including two ballads by Nick and a giddy run through the sweary banger Cake By The Ocean, a hit by Joe’s dance-rock side-project DNCE. The best song of the evening may have been Work It Out, an impossibly catchy, and as-yet unreleased, solo effort by Joe Jonas.
Joe later appeared on stage with a black cowboy hat perched on his head to lead his brothers through a surprisingly satisfying take on Garth Brooks’ Friends in Low Places, an admittedly pandering tip of the hat to the Stampede but one that worked just the same.
Opening up the festivities Saturday night was Michael Bernard Fitzgerald, a Calgary singer-songwriter who possesses a remarkable talent for engineering high-profile concert settings to showcase his smokey, James Taylor-esque balladry. That now includes a Saddledome debut after he dropped in for a brief three-song intro Saturday night.
He was followed by Georgia native Logan Crosby, who was making his Canadian debut. Crosby, who was runner-up on the Jonas-hosted reality series Claim to Fame and is Jason Aldean’s cousin, made several references to rock ‘n’ roll (i.e. “Y’all know how to rock ‘n’ roll.”). But he actually trades in the sort of modern country music that wouldn’t sound out of place on a mainstream-radio playlist or early slot at Country Thunder.
At one point, Crosby asked about the levels of alcohol consumption in the audience, which got significantly less cheers than it usually does. (Is this a question that all country acts at the Calgary Stampede are contractually obligated to ask?) It’s probably safe to assume that the audience members who were driven to the Saddledome by their parents were abstaining Saturday night. It is a Jonas Brothers concert, after all. Even though the three brothers are all now 30-something, they still seem to attract plenty of pre-drinking age fans.
But that was part of the charm Saturday night. Grandparents, parents, 30-somethings, 20-somethings, teens, pre-teens and little kids all seemed to know the words to almost every song, which was in contrast to the hapless Calgary Herald reviewer who spent the night desperately Googling lyrics to find out song titles. Say what you will about the brothers’ boy-band, Disney origins, but the fact that they can still fill stadiums nearly 20 years later suggests their material may have surprisingly sturdy legs.