Dear Gavin, You So Fine!

Last night, I saw Gavin DeGraw perform at the Roxy Theater.

He was charming, charismatic, and energetic. It's like he actually wanted to sing well, perform well, make sure the songs come across to us, and make sure we were feeling good. A very crowd-pleasing take on a performer who has not yet gone commercial and you can't help thinking, Thank God for that. I enjoyed it immensely. I felt like I was watching this indie artist perform and me and the 200 people there are the only ones aware of how amazing he is. The new songs are really good plus the good oldies, you could tell the crowd knew those oldies pretty well because they sang to every tune like we had that CD on rotate. You can't help thinking, "So what if he never sold a million records or got nominated for a Grammy, the underground artists are the best."

There wasn't that much banter, he just basically thanked us all for being there repeatedly, apologized for being away so long, and introduced his band, which he said was a newly formed band, but they sounded great together. But he looked good for someone whos been hibernating. He had a chuckle sweet smile for every time the crowd cheered or he hit the right note. He made very few jokes, and you can't help noticing the hick in his speaking voice, like he's from some midwestern part of the country, too bad he is actually from NY.

At the end it seemed like he wasn't going to perform Chariot. Me and some drunk ladies kept chanting Chariot, Chariot, like we were making requests. Then, I remembered how sensitive Gavin can be about his performance, but he took it well, and dove into that song with an intensity that made up for making us wait for it.

He was not as good as when I saw him perform 2 years ago at the Jingle Ball show for 20 solid intense minutes that were the best 20 minutes of the show. This time he was more subdued and easing into the performance. Then, it felt like he had something to prove, like remember me or else. Now, since he was the headliner, he was sure we knew who he was. But it was still a good show. Will I go see him again? In a heartbeat.