Maroon 5

Maroon 5 Overexposed Tour

Katie February 24, 2013 0Comment

Friday night Maroon 5 brought their Overexposed tour to the Mohegan Sun Arena.  I had been owed tickets through the fan club due to a mix up with a contest I won last year so I had no idea where our seats would be until we picked them up and was excited to see they were 2nd row!  The stage set up was an M and there was a general admission pit up by it.  Those in the pit were split with different colored wristbands which allowed them to stand either on the left side or the right side of the point of the M.  There was also a walkway about 4 seats away from us and then another stage further in the back.  For a while I was convinced Adam was going to walk right by us, I was almost right… but I’ll explain more later (and if you’re going to a show and don’t want to be spoiled, you may not want to read that part.)

The first opening act was Owl City and they (he?) played from 8-8:30 I really wasn’t that impressed with his set and there were also a TON of strobe lights used during the set so I had my head down and eyes closed for a good majority of it because the flashing was bothering me.

Next up was Neon Trees who I was excited to see. Unfortunately it was difficult to get any photos because I didn’t want to stand up and the couple in front of me seemed to be like a brick wall with arms that they waved in the air like they just didn’t care and cameras up in the air recording pretty much everything, ever. (I’m not against taking videos but when you record nearly the WHOLE SHOW… you should maybe take time and enjoy the moment you are actually in.) Neon Trees played from 9-9:30 and I enjoyed their set much more.

At 10pm it was time for the main event – Maroon 5! There was a big screen set up and it played videos on it, but most of it I couldn’t make out. You heard someone dialing a phone and a sorry the number cannot be completed as dialed recording, so of course the first song they did was Payphone. The set was a 90 minute set and was high energy for nearly the entire show. They did quite a mix of songs from all the albums – almost an equal amount from each of the albums (by my count/memory). I also thought that Adam did a great job dividing his time on the sides of the Ms – obviously he was in the middle the most (which is what we were closest too) but I never had a feeling that he was neglecting to our right in order to be on the far left which I sometimes get at shows.

When Adam introduced the rest of the band, he grabbed the camera and was taking shots of the audience and then zoomed in waaaay in the back and said thanks to modern technology they were not very far away. His camera work pretty much made me sea-sick (and he even admitted he was not very good at it!) but he took the camera around to get close ups of the rest of the band when he introduced each of them, which was pretty funny.

For 2 of the songs (Wake Up Call and Moves Like Jagger) the band was joined by Rozzi Crane (www.rozzicrane.com). She was really good on the duets and also did great at getting the crowd to participate with some ‘yeah yeah yeah’ sing a longs.

Here is the encore details and if you don’t want to be spoiled stop reading right now! After 13 songs, the lights went out and I noticed there was a lot more security coming to the walk way that I thought Adam would be going down. I knew something was going to be happening soon. It turns out, there was a huge bridge up at the ceiling that came down from the sky and for the encore Adam walked across it (and sometimes sang on it) and made the 60th row the 1st row. He did 3 songs of the encore back there / on the bridge – Stereo Hearts, She Will Be Loved (when we got split in to groups to sing – it sounded awesome and I always love doing stuff like that) and Daylight. Then he came back to the main stage for Moves Like Jagger. The rest of the band was on the main stage but Jimmy V did join him for a little bit out on the end stage.

I have been going to Maroon 5 shows for 10 years now (it is CRAZY to think about that) the first time that I saw them was opening up for John Mayer in late 2002. No one really knew who John was and even less people knew who Maroon 5 was. I immediately fell in love and have seen them several more times through the years since then. (I think I’ve missed a couple of their tours). It is amazing to see how they have evolved through the years to now be this HUGE super star band. The show was absolutely amazing and the best part was at the end – Adam said they would be back in the summer! I can’t wait!

Payphone
Makes Me Wonder
Lucky Strike
Sunday Morning
If I Never See Your Face Again
Wipe Your Eyes
Won’t Go Home Without You
Love Somebody
Harder To Breathe
Wake Up Call
One More Night
Misery
This Love

Stereo Hearts
She Will Be Loved
Daylight
Moves Like Jagger

Maroon 5 at MGM Grand

Katie May 19, 2012 0Comment

Thursday night Maroon 5 had a concert at the MGM Grand Casino at Foxwoods.  Originally there was a different opening act announced but a few days before the show Javier Colon tweeted and said that he would be opening, so obviously I was thrilled.
At 7pm the curtain rose and there was Javier with his band.  First he did Someone Like You – an adele cover. Then he did some songs from his album Come Through For You including Running, Raise Your Hand and Stand Up, Man Up.  Everyone was going nuts for his bass player during Stand Up who was dancing around.  Javier said that when they first started playing together he didn’t know that “Big Sexy” did that and was wondering why everyone was going nuts during the song.  He played his next single – Drop in the Ocean which he accidentally said was written by Ron Paul. (It is written by Ron Pope)  and he finished out his set with Stitch by Stitch and Coldplay’s Fix You.  He didn’t talk as much as he did when he is the headliner and mentioned he was trying to fit in as many songs as possible into his set.

Then we had a break and at about 8pm it was time for Maroon 5! Everyone up front rushed to the stage and I commented that I was glad we were not down there. (My friend Jessa that I went with is pregnant and one poke to me would land me on the floor!)

We were hoping they would do more old songs than new since we weren’t all that familiar with the Hands All Over album (I know, I know, I am such a freaking slacker) but were pleasantly surprised when the majority of the set appeared to be from Songs About Jane – which is turning 10 years old.  I can’t believe that I first saw them (almost) 10 years ago opening for John Mayer!

They opened their set with a bit of Stereo Hearts and then went right in to This Love. Which was followed by Harder to Breathe and Sunday Morning. I was becoming nervous that all the songs I knew would make up the first half of the set – but quickly realized they had a LOT more singles than I had thought and so I knew a good majority of the songs from the radio.

Adam seemed to have turned his stage precense into moves like jagger. Which I dont remember him doing the last time I saw them. Maybe the song went to his head. ha ha. He was also pretty funny with his talking to the crowd – saying that if we didn’t participate and help him out we’d all go home crying.  At one point he kept going “Say Yeah!” and then everyone would of course say “YEAH!” and then he said that he wasn’t sure how you end it when you do that and realized that “Everybody SCREAM!” works so then he tried it again with everybody scream at the end and he said that he was now going to use that on tour and thanked us for helping him figure that out.

I thought the set was pretty short and some girls in the elevator when we were leaving were calling it the “shortest concert ever” their main set was about an hour and then we had the encore which brought it to just under an hour and a half.  For the encore they did Moves Like Jagger, Hands All Over (pretty much the only song I didn’t know) and then She Will Be Loved.  I loved how they ended the show with She Will Be Loved and the crowd was split.  The other side was singing “she will be loved” while our side snapped our fingers and sang “I don’t mind spending every day… out on your corner in the pouring rain” and then Adam directed us as a huge chorus.  It was pretty awesome (and the acoustics at the theater are great for this kind of thing), it was such a great way to end the show on a high note.

Unfortunately I was slacking in the charging the camera battery department and my battery died pretty early on and then I discovered the “backup” I brought was ALSO dying.  So I did my best with photos but I did not take nearly as many as I would have liked.  Lesson learned – I’ll be buying an additional charger for the car so this kind of thing won’t happen again (hopefully).  I would have had no problem charging at least one of them on the hour trip up to the casino!
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