MIGUEL at Sound Academy, Tuesday, August 11. Rating: NNN
Wildheart is the first Miguel album attuned to the raucous energy of the Los Angeles rocker’s performances. His live shows are less about capturing his albums’ mood and texture and more about freewheeling, even reckless, rock ’n’ roll. (To this day he remains unapologetic about his disastrous stage jump at the 2013 Billboard Awards.)
Dressed in a white jacket with fringed sleeves that blustered around in a wind machine as cosmic visuals melted and morphed behind him, he radiated a new agey glow. A rollicking take on The Thrill, off 2012’s Kaleidoscope Dream album, set the tone for what was to come: a winding and contorting Miguel and his five-piece band (also in white) tightly in sync, with just the right amount of messy energy. His Prince-like falsetto sounded as perfect and robust as his cut body looked, and his voice could not have sounded better throughout the two-hour set.
In a recent interview with NOW, he talked about having found a new sense of purpose through Wildheart, and he made good on that by prefacing several songs with meandering anecdotes and platitudes about the philosophies behind Wildheart, self-acceptance and anti-conformity. It all had a Stevie Nicks-fresh-outta-rehab vibe.
Even more than sapping the show’s momentum, the lengthy monologues started to feel patronizing (he explained the definitions of subjectivity and normality at one point) and diluted the potency of songs like A Beautiful Exit and What’s Normal Anyway – a ballad about growing up mixed-race – which are simple, beautiful and effective all on their own.
