Clay's Christmas glory note in Merrillville

Clay was in Merrillville last night, for the second concert in his Christmas Symphony Orchestra tour. The first night of the tour, the previous night, he'd not quite made the final note of the final song, a new one called All Is Well. Actually he mangled it quite badly, tried again, and missed it a second time. No-one in the audience much minded - we love him anyway - but I'm pretty sure he cared, and I imagine he wasn't too pleased with himself.

As the moment approached for the final song in Merrillville, I'm guessing there was more than one nervous person in the concert hall. I know most of the ClayNation not at the concert was glued to cellcerts, chat room screens and message boards with fingers, toes and pretty much everything else crossed. Clay had his fingers crossed on-stage, too.

It's an incredibly difficult song to sing - it begins very very low for the first couple of verses, moves into Clay's "normal" range for a couple more verses and finishes with the glory note to end all glory notes, which apparently is a high A which he holds for a full 8 seconds. It's a tough one, all right.

Here's how it was described by someone who was there:

He planted his feet, gripped the microphone stand and let it rip. Everyone all around me was leaning forward, afraid to breathe, almost willing him through it, and you could tell that he knew it. And when the time came, he grabbed the mic stand, planted his feet, squeezed his eyes shut and it just...came out. Wow. It was so gorgeous and so powerful. I heard a lot of gasps, and then everyone simultaneously jumped to their feet, screaming and applauding and jumping up and down.

Oh - you want to hear it? You want to see it too? Here it is on YouTube.



Thanks to the very wonderful jojoct for the clack.

There's more...

I have to admit on this clip I find Clay's face-scrunches a little full-on for my tastes, but hey - that's what singers do - especially when they're singing the most difficult song in the book and they screwed it up the night before. Anyway, it sounds awesome - as does this clip of Clay singing Mary Did You Know and Hark The Herald Angels Sing/Oh Come All Ye Faithful, also in Merrillville:



Thanks once again to jojoct for the clack.

Oh - and, as anyone who has seen Clay live knows, he's also extremely funny in concert. Rolling on the floor funny at times. Here's a montage by GooodBabyBrush of the funniest moments at Merrillville. Vids by jojoct and Scarlett, clack gatherers extraordinaire:



Now - you MUST go and read The Power of a Nation over at the ConCLAYve. It's a wonderful post by CB about last night's show, as seen from the heart of the ClayNation. It's lovely. The power of positive thinking, indeed!

Technorati tags: Clay Aiken, Christmas tour, Christmas concert, Merrillville, All Is Well, AIW, Mary Did You Know, MDYK, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, HTHAS, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, OCAYF, banter, clack, glory note, YouTube.