IT MIGHT be a sign of these uncertain times, but right now the biggest artist in Ireland is probably the unassuming Canadian crooner Michael Bublé.
The singer plays big band standards in a manner that harks back to simpler times and he has admitted that, musically speaking, he is not trying to reinvent the wheel.
He will never trouble the music critics too much, yet, at a time when even the biggest artists are struggling to fill concert venues, he has sold out two concerts at the Aviva stadium, the first of which took place last night.
Last Christmas he sold more copies of his last album Crazy Lovein one week in this country than any recording artist, even U2, had managed in the past – and those were hard copies, not downloads.
Bublé (35) managed these feats after only becoming an international star five years ago. Since then he has bucked every trend and confounded every critic.
Yesterday he held court for a while with local media and admitted that he felt like a Beatle walking down the streets of Dublin. “The egotistical part of me would say the Irish have good taste. I love you guys, I really do. Ireland has a special place in my heart,” he said.
“If somebody loves you this much, you love them back,” he added, not altogether seriously.
“If you ask me am I in love with Japan, I’d say not really. I like sushi, but I can take ’em or leave ’em.”
Last night’s concert, the first in the new stadium, was the biggest of Bublé’s career to date and was filmed for posterity.
He turned up the lights on the audience and savoured the moment describing the number of fans who turned up on a chilly night as “ridiculous”.
Bublé has a keen line in repartee. He sent up his image as a singer with a particular female fan base and said he was not going to produce the soundtrack to Sex and the City III.
He drew sighs from the crowd by displaying his engagement ring, explaining that wearing one is a tradition for men in his fiancee Loreley Lopilato’s home country of Argentina.
Argentinian women were not to be trifled with, he told the crowd, and if he behaved like Tiger Woods he would find himself minus a vital organ.
Before the concert, the singer seemed genuinely grateful for his break and unfazed by the fuss.
“The music industry is not in the greatest shape in the world, particularly in the live business,” he said. “For a Canadian kid, the son of a fisherman, to come out and play for 50,000, 100,000 people over two nights is incredible.
“I really want to process this, to be connected to all those people, it might never happen again in my life, I can’t assume that I’m going to go on to play in a stadium again. I don’t ever want to forget these nights.”
The audience last night was overwhelmingly female, although Bublé was at pains yesterday evening to point out that he does have male fans too.
He doesn’t want to be a guilty pleasure for either men or women. “I hope I’m not a guilty pleasure. A guilty pleasure sucks.”
Bublé provided 13,000 ponchos for the crowd last night in preparation for more of the rain, which has made it a damp week in the capital and elsewhere.
The forecast for tonight’s concert is for dry and cold weather, so fans are being advised to dress accordingly.
