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Concert reviews Music

Bruno Mars

BRUNO MARS at the Molson Amphitheatre, Wednesday (July 3). Rating: NNNN


I went for the choreography but stayed for the good vibes (and also because I was writing this review). Bruno Mars took his sweet time getting to the stage, but one flash of his Colgate smile and all was forgiven. Add in an arsenal of self-penned chart-toppers, MJ attire and eight friendly dudes with horns and casually in sync dance moves and it’s no wonder girls of all ages were swooning.

And Mars’s fans are overwhelmingly women. His hook-filled tunes are aggressively sexual but also tenderly romantic. Sometimes he sings about the mistakes he’s made in love, and the importance of loving you Just The Way You Are. The latter is a wretchedly pandering song he dragged out forever by having us sing the chorus again and again while crowd shots flashed across the jumbo screens. Gleeful screams abounded.

But the Hawaii-born pop wonder offset the saccharine with easygoing reggae, Sam Cookian gospel-soul, sexy breakdowns, cathartic bombast and solo acoustic moments that showed off his terrific voice. One impressively melismatic run at the end earned him a seemingly spontaneous high-five from his saxophonist.

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