Part I
I flew into Salt Lake on Monday afternoon, the day of the concert. It was freezing there, with ice and snow on the ground from a weekend storm. I went for a walk downtown to scope out the venue and passed right by the buses, which were parked on the street in front of the concert hall. The two buses--one black, one red--were brand spanking new and had their motors running, as did the tour truck. I'm sure they had the motors on to power the on-board heaters, which meant someone was on board, like maybe Clay was napping right that minute and I was just inches away! I had an insane fangirly desire to touch the bus, but I walked on. :wacko:

I met up with TwirlyJet, GibbGal, smz80219, and clayoradoan for dinner, and then we lined up in the freezing cold to get into the venue. There was on opportunistic "scalper" (don't know if that's the right word) who cruised the line, asking people if they had extra tickets for sale. Clayoradoan had an extra $43 ticket she'd been unable to get rid of even though the show was sold out. This guy bought it for $20 and then sold it for $50 to someone else. We saw him do this several times. Quite the entrepreneur.

Abravanel Hall was spectacular inside, with a very modern design. There were three balconies all the way around and six glittering, star-shaped chandeliers. The seats and walls were all in shades of gold-simply beautiful.

My seat was AMAZING, in row 4, just right of center. I must bow down to TwirlyJet here, and give thanks again, because she drove 9 hours to stand in line at the box office starting at 5 am the day tickets went on sale. :bow: Her reward (and mine) were these FANTASTIC tickets. This is one concert where it was better not to be in first row or two. I sat next to VaInUT, and her family, a crazy coincidence, since we had sat next to each other at the Independent Tour Salt Lake concert too. They did announce before the show started that the artists had requested no flash photography. And if someone around you was using a flash, to please help out and ask that person to turn it off. :nono:

Before the first song, you could see the children and musicians gathered on stage, silhouetted through the filmy stage curtains. And there was Clay, a tall silhouette among them. I watched him, a shadowed figure, throw his arms out to his sides and tilt back his head, as if stretching in preparation for a demanding athletic feat. :thud :thud :thud Wow, that was exciting! I think I may have squealed a bit. I will not lose that image anytime soon.

I won't give a song by song recap since others have done that for earlier concerts, but I'll touch on what were some of the highlights for me. Also, when I get in the Clay zone, sometimes it all goes by in a blur. Like he will be bantering, and I think I'm listening, and then he's done, and I'm like "what did he just say?" because I was focused on staring at the way his lips move when he talks, or some such thing. So my memory is not the best for this recap!

Part II
The concert opener, The Music of Christmas, featured Clay using that danged headset microphone again. I could not hear him! He was woefully underamplified. As he sang, he moved among the children, who were charmingly dressed in costumes from all over the world (have they dressed like this at other concerts?), but I couldn't hear his voice. He opened his mouth and moved his lips but I could only hear a whisper of a sound. Wahhhh! :bawling: (It didn't' help that the drummer was incredibly loud.) I kept thinking they would adjust the sound by the end of the song, but they didn't.

Clay was stunningly beautiful. For the first set, he wore an argyle sweater (so "in" right now) with an orange shirt peaking out and some mighty fine light gray pants. The drape of the pants was to die for, especially from the front. :whistle: You will see what I mean if you watch the videos. (Really, it is a MUST to watch videos of these pants. :drool3: )

Then Clay switched to a regular mic for the next song, Sleigh Ride, and I thought Hallelujah, I am going to get to hear him. But this new mic was way underamplified also, and the drums were still too loud. I was starting to think "is it going to be this way for the whole concert?" and I wondered if they hadn't had time to do a sound check earlier. For the next song, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, they did fix the mic and Clay's voice could now be heard. It sounded wonderful on this song. Thud!

Clay bantered a bit with the crowd and said that he didn't usually have snow for his birthday, so thank you Salt Lake City. He said he was not used to the snow and the ice and had slipped and fallen three times already. He had some "bruises on my bum." The crowd laughed when he said that. Something about Clay saying the word "bum" was both funny and hot. :) :coldshower:

On Winter Wonderland, Clay danced oh so sweetly with Angela. :love2: He gave her the most adoring looks and she smiled back at him and they touched so gently and tenderly. You just couldn't take your eyes off of them. I guess Quiana and Jacob were off dancing somewhere together too, but I didn't see them. They could have been down on the floor doing push-ups and I wouldn't have noticed. Clay moved very smoothly as a dancer and was very attentive to his partner. Where does this myth come from that he can't dance? He looked very much at home on the dance floor. (See WW video!)

Clay began Silver Bells, the song he usually sings with either Quiana or Angela, and then welcomed Carmen Rasmusen out onto the stage to duet with him. She came out onto the stage in mid song, cute as a button, singing strongly into her microphone with a country flavor to her low voice. Clay's voice and hers blended really well and much as I like Angela and Quiana, it was refreshing to hear him duet with a "new" voice. Carmen wore a satiny green skirt and a black sweater, and her curly long blonde hair bounced as she moved. She and Clay interacted well together during the song, singing to each other instead of the audience. Very cute. Clay is a good friend to invite her to perform with him. They talked about Carmen's new CD, which has just been released.

As Clay began singing the jazzy "What Are You Doing New Years Eve?" he strolled purposefully along the edge of the stage, eyeboinking every female in row 1 until she screamed. :thudmats: Then he moved out into the audience, sang first to a woman in a wheelchair, and then knelt in front of a couple more melting females to serenade them, looking deeply into their eyes while holding their hands next to his heart. Clay certainly knows how to make the women scream and thud, doesn't he? The man makes it dang hard to act with the decorum he seemed to have wanted for these elegant Christmas concerts. While Clay was down among the crowd, Jerome and another security person were standing nearby, shining flashlights into the crowd adjacent to Clay, the ones within easy reach. I guess they were checking people out to make sure they weren't going to grab for him.

Next Jacob sang an R&B tinged song (title unknown) while playing piano and acquitted himself well.

In the second set, Clay returned to the stage wearing a beautiful blue shirt, red-orange tie, and the long jacket. Yummmmmm! He opened with O, Holy Night, which I have enjoyed on the MCWL CD, but it wasn't one of my top favorites. Well, this performance may have changed that. His voice was so pure and beautiful. :bawling: Everyone was just caught up in the beauty and majesty of the voice. I loved this entire segment, with local children reading the story of Jesus' birth from the bible interspersed with similarly themed songs: O, Holy Night, Silent Night, Hark the Herald Angels Sing/O Come All Ye Faithful, The First Noel, and Mary Did You Know? Having the kids read the passages made the event seem like a school Christmas pageant, but it worked! I love how Clay has included local children in all of the concerts on this tour.

Clay bantered a bit with the crowd and his singers. He talked about New Year's resolutions and how he made a resolution several years ago not to have New Year's resolutions. He asked the singers what their resolutions were. Jacob and Angela didn't have any. Quiana said her New Year's resolution is to help more around the house. Clay loved that because he said Quiana had been living with him the last month. He asked her if she would be putting her dishes in the dishwasher, and she said yes, and she would load his too! He loved that! :roflmao:

Clay also gave the spiel about how his grandmother wanted to take piano lessons but he tried them out and only lasted 2 hours and then was done with piano. He did say he was going to play a song for us on piano. The crowd cheered at that idea. So Clay walked over to the piano and played Chopsticks! :laugh: The place went nuts. Then he stood up from the piano bench, so proud of himself, and gave a little bow. :clap: Cute Clay. S'von was cracking up.

Quiana did a solo that was incredible; I believe it is the same song that Angela has sung in previous concerts, Jesus Born on This Day. :clap:

Clay returned to the stage, having shed his long jacket. He looked gorgeous in the shimmery blue dress shirt and red tie. He launched into the song I had been waiting for, DSIAFCD. He was amazing on this song. I could sit and watch and listen to him sing this one all day. His voice was really in strong form. There are a lot of vocal nuances he adds to this song, plus of course, the powerful glory notes. He had no trouble hitting the glory notes and gave us a deep knee bend way down to the floor. He seemed very pleased with himself for that, because on the next line he stamped his foot a couple of times in pure delight. :thud And we cheered for him. He was a joy to watch and listen to-so strong, so powerful, such a heartfelt interpretation. This song was truly a show stopper. Standing ovation. :hclap:

After the beautiful encore song, Good News, Clay left the stage. Immediately the crowd began singing Happy Birthday, which had been agreed upon by Internet fans prior to the concert. At first the song was small, but it spread around the hall and most of the crowd seemed to be singing as we finished up. I could hear S'von start trying to accompany us on piano from behind the curtain, but before he could catch up to us, we were done. Later I heard through grapevine that Clay did indeed hear us sing. (I had thought he might have jetted out of the venue immediately and missed it.)

last updated 12/22/04