Kelly Clarkson stopped off at the Wang Theatre on Thursday night for her “Stronger” tour, living up to its title with a mighty performance. The former “American Idol” winner delighted fans with a setlist featuring numbers spanning her now ten year career.
There’s been a lot of talk about Ms. Clarkson recently as she’s been in the news for her music, her politics, and her personal life. She made it clear that all the talk doesn’t bother her as the show began with a montage of headlines and keywords like “sponsors drop out”, “album leaked”, “fat”, and “failure”, before she fittingly countered the gossip with “Dark Side”, with lyrics like “Nobody’s a picture perfect” and “Remind me who I really am” standing out the most.
Clarkson had a lot to say herself, proving that she’s still very much the “girl next door” that she’s been painted as for much of her career with self-deprecating jokes and other humor. The singer has been tapped to perform the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, and she informed the crowd that she will be rooting for the Patriots in the big game. To rid any skeptics, she swore that she said the same thing when she was recently in New York, saying “I’m not that kind of person”.
The Wang was sold out and Clarkson’s adoring fans stood throughout the performance, dancing along to lively tunes like “Since U Been Gone” and new single “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger)”, while still standing for ballads such as “You Still Won’t Know” and “Don’t You Wanna Stay”, complete with Jason Aldean appearing on a curtain screen.
The band took a seat for a stripped down portion of the show as Clarkson belted out snippets of songs from each of her albums in succession, in celebration of the “ten year rollercoaster”. After starting with “The Trouble With Love Is” and segueing “Walk Away” into “How I Feel”, Clarkson capped the medley off in style, pitting the audience against each other as they battled each other with chorus parts in “I Want You”.
Clarkson repeatedly mentioned what a fan of music she is, and she showed it by throwing several covers into her set. She threw fans off a bit with a lesser-known Florence and the Machine song, “Heavy In Your Arms”, although performing it admirably. She followed it with the fan-requested Heart ballad, “What About Love”, saying Ann Wilson is her favorite singer of all-time before doing Wilson proud.
You can say what you want about Kelly Clarkson, but after the Mr. and Ms. combination of “Mr. Know It All” and “Miss Independent” ended the show in grand fashion, nobody in attendance would say they were disappointed.