Meghan Trainor Puts On A Stunning Show To Prove It's Not Only About That Bass
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Meghan Trainor is a name that has been bouncing around the internet for the last six months or so. Her debut single "All About That Bass" has over 750 million views on Youtube and she has been labelled “The Happy Adele” from critics alike... but what is her show like? Can she deliver a show-stopping, crowd pleasing show? Or is she simply hype?
The show opens with a dialogue “This is the girl. This is the dress. And this is the look. What photographer wouldn’t agree that this face this fashion this figure make the perfect cover girl?”. During this audio, we see a cartooned petite dress, a petite cartooned female and a cartooned shoe. You get the picture... we’ve all heard "Bass" we know exactly what Meghan is saying.
Interestingly enough the link to Meghan comes with a simple “And now to one of our pop sensations Meghan Trainor”, it’s almost a tongue-in-chic commentary from Meghan about how these representations are nothing to do with her, yet we are informed of her global success and hear an audio track of Meghan being introduced by a variety of different hosts. At one point I’m almost certain Hilary Duff is heard, but that may have been my dream.
What appears striking is how Meghan simply appears on the stage. It’s exceedingly dark and a light comes on and she is just there, in true form. She opens the show with "Dear Future Husband" (the current alleged anti-feminist song) and the party begins. The song itself is a bouncy little number with it’s tongue-in-cheek nature and to be quite honest, the anti-feminist rant that is spread about the song is nothing but nonsense. Sometimes people forget what feminism actually is.
The show continues with bouncy bonus tracks "Mr Almost" and personal favourite "Credit", which credits the wonderful lyric “I taught him everything, now he can last for hours”, performed tastefully and again... tongue-in-cheek. The show moves swiftly on with non-event "No Good For You" and as the dreary mid-tempo comes to an end, the crowd erupt and Meghan is handed a sequenced ukulele and performs a slowed down version of "Title". A moment to showcase her vocals and unique style.
The crowd sing along as she sings of a doomed relationship where the male lover is refusing to label the relationship their in. As the crowd cheer and weep for the acoustic Meghan, she booms up the stereo with "Walkashame" and disappears off stage mid-song for a costume change and returns with a premiere of a new song entitle "The Queen"... a reggae-inspired song asking her male counterpart to “wind your waist”. It’s a great crowd song and feels like a big summer hit in the making.
The bizarre moment of the show comes in the form of Meghan’s cover of "Uptown Funk" where she doesn’t actually sing along and lets the audience have their 3 minutes of failed singing, whilst she dances in sync with her dancers and blows kisses at various members of the audience. It’s one of those songs that as you hear it more, you begin to hate it even more... funnily enough it was one of the songs fans were heard singing whilst waiting outside the venue for Meghan. There must be a story there.
The show ends with the beautifully, catchy and well-crafted pop single "Lips Are Movin’", which is arguably a better pop song than "Bass". She delivers the song with such ease and confidence and sounds absolutely fantastic when performing and for me, the show would have been perfect there and then but we all knew "Bass" was yet to come.
Now don’t get me wrong, "Bass" has a great message. It’s interesting how someone, who is quite clearly a size 14 (max) can ever be labelled as fat, but it’s good that she has something to say about weight issues. The problem with "Bass" for me is that it just feels like it lacks any life or identity, whereas something like "Lips Are Movin’", "Dear Future Husband" or "Credit" feel unique to Trainor herself, as an artist.
For a debut single, it feels like it lacks identity or the chemistry of "...Baby One More Time", or the sassiness of "Crazy In Love". One thing to note, a confetti bomb comes out the side of the stage at the end of the show, and it was unexpected resulting in spilt drinks! Another small side bar... how many of you have actually listened to "All About That Bass" next to a humongous bass? There is no other feeling in the world.
Meghan Trainor is a name that has been everywhere since August 2014. She hasn’t twerked, snogged Drake or leaked naked photos (yet), instead she has come out and said “I’m no size 2” and annoyed feminists. She has created some great pop music and has inspired an interesting debate into what a pop star is. The show is a colourful spectacle that interjects up-tempo bouncy numbers with slower tempo moments and the experience was a triumph.
To find out more about Meghan Trainor click here.
To visit the Meghan Trainor Facebook page click here.
Words and pics by Daniel John Sado
Video by Jimmy Jo
