Mother's Day Live Streaming Concert 5/8/2021

CONCERT REPORT
IL DIVO LIVESTREAM
8 MAY 2021 – scheduled for 1830 Pacific Time
SET LIST
Regresa a Mi (album version)
Every Time I Look at You
Mama
Caruso
Theme from “Love Story”
Hallelujah
Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina
Quizas Quizas Quizas
Quien Sera
Por Una Cabeza
Unforgettable
Smile
My Girl (new album)
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough (w Marvin Gaye) (new album)
I Will Always Love You
Hasta mi Final
You Raise Me Up
My Way
Concert started 30 minutes late at 1900 Pacific time. Hard to understand why this happens with a prerecorded concert. It’s very hard on people around the world who got up in the middle of the night to watch.
Costumes, left to right:
David: black single-breasted suit, black collared shirt, those floppy black sneaker/boots he wears when he’s off duty.
Urs: blue/grey single-breasted suit, round-collared white tee shirt, black sneakers with white soles, no socks!, and blue-tinted aviator glasses. Has his LASIK worn off???
Carlos: black single-breasted suit, white collared shirt, dress shoes, pocket square of black with white polka dots
Sebastien: light grey single-breasted suit, black V-neck tee shirt, black sneakers with white soles, and a kind of a half beard
They opened with Regresa a Mi, the original LP version, not the souped-up Latin version they’ve been performing lately. So wonderful to hear it again!
Urs sang a new vocal variation on his “hablando solo de ti.” I liked it!
They used their usual prerecorded concert instrumental track and had a string quartet and piano in the studio for visuals. Their music director Miguel Angel Almaguer conducted from the piano.
D chatted about this being their first streaming concert. U said it was nice finally to be singing together again and was a special occasion.
They were singing in the EastWest Studios in Hollywood (Los Angeles). EastWest Studios -- The World's Premier Recording Facility They were together in a room with rugs on the floor for sound dampening. The musicians were in another room. Both rooms had multiple roving cameras.
Urs commented that the recording studio has a great vibe. Artists who have recorded there include Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.
Carlos did an intro in Spanish and offered a special kiss “to mamacita.”
Next was Every Time I Look at You. I was delighted to see that the onscreen title had Every Time as two words. Finally! They have always had it wrong as one word all these years.
I noticed Urs has some silver hairs showing, and I was very glad to see he is not dyeing his hair.
Next S did a chat to introduce the conductor and musicians in the other room.
Next they sang Mama, and The Claw was in fine form. Mi mancherai!
C said that music has been a gift helping him try to stay positive over the last year.
D said that music is the soundtrack of our lives and that the next song is one of his favorites.
Caruso. At this point the feed started freezing occasionally, usually the video and not the sound, and it was only really bad a couple of times.
S said “You guys sound always so beautiful. I missed you.”
Love Theme from “Love Story”
There were a lot of loud, sustained notes in the last part of this one, and when they finished S said “Whew! It’s surely been awhile since we’ve been on the road.” U said, “It’s hard!”
C spoke in Spanish and I think encouraged the viewers to give feedback. S said, “We’re streaming. We can’t hear them!”
U said, “Time for more music and some exciting news!” But they saved the news and sang Hallelujah instead. It was so weird to hear the guitar on the track when there was none in sight anywhere lol
Next S introduced Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina, but C was fooling with Seb’s mic stand and he was having a terrible time pronouncing “Lloyd-Webber.” Urs sang his big solo line in English – “at sixes and sevens with you”? – and all the rest of the song was in Spanish. That was a bit of a shock.
When they finished, C said, “My goodness, so many high notes.” C introduced the next set of songs by saying he thought their sexiest album is Amor y Pasion and “this music always gets me.”
U: Are you sure it’s the music?
They said the album tour was special because: (Seb) I learned to dance, (David) I learned to play the bandoneon, and (Urs) I got married.
Next up was Quizas Quizas Quizas, during which S encouraged everyone at home to dance.
Next was Quien Sera, during which D got right up into the camera on a solo line and U did the cha cha cha. On the second time through, the music sped up tremendously and they were all racing for the finish line.
C introduced Por Una Cabeza with chat in Spanish about Carlos Gardel. D said, “I forgot my bandoneon.” C and D did the tango and C said, “You’re too heavy” when he tried to dip David.
Then U tangoed with D.
David: You know the steps! I got nothin’.
When they finished the song, U said, “No more Amor y Pasion.”
Carlos: Can we sit down?
Seb: Age?
David to Seb: One day they might say, “That’s the very stool Seb sat on.”
Urs: Sell it on eBay!
Seb: $10!
Next was Unforgettable.
Then C introduced Smile.
Then there was quite a long chat about what each of them did during COVID lockdown.
David: learned to cook, to make bread, put on weight, converted his basement into a studio, but the hardest part – here he started to cry – was when his dog Cosmo passed away. Then he channeled his emotion into art: practicing trombone, practicing singing, working on his opera aria album.
Seb: I was super busy. Wake up, put on a track suit and tee shirt, do some interviews, eat dinner, go to bed. Repeat. For ten months. Also bake bread.
He said he made a “mother.” Some further discussion revealed that what he had made was a sourdough starter. He was also in the studio and created some new material which he had played for the rest of the guys. David said, “It’s different.”
Urs: Bought a home in Southern California in summer 2019. They were touring and on the way to Mexico when the pandemic cancelled touring. So he and Lety moved into a basically empty house with only a mattress, a table, and some chairs from his last house. They couldn’t go shopping for furniture because the stores were closed. The house is still half empty. Urs is not a party guy, so he’s OK staying home and he was grateful for the gift of time. They have not had much time to themselves since ID started. He did not bake bread.
Carlos: kept busy with his own studio, recorded a solo album and also some new material with Innocence. Every time he went to the supermarket, fans would recognize him. He was wearing a mask but Fernando gave him away. He met lots of beautiful fans that way.
Then D announced they will have a new all-Motown music album coming out in July.
They sang two tracks from the new album, both in English: My Girl and Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. On the latter a couple of the lines are sung by the late Marvin Gaye, who had a hit record with it, singing with Tammi Terrell in 1967. I liked both tracks.
D said that they had started recording the album in 2019, planning a 2020 release to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Motown Records.
U said it was the most fun and most challenging album they’ve done so far.
D introduced the next song by saying it was recorded for the movie “The Bodyguard” in the same studio where this concert was produced: I Will Always Love You (Whitney Houston version).
Hasta mi Final was next. Urs said to the guys “I’ve told you this several times, so it’s an old chestnut, but I got married to this song.”
The guys were all surprised. “Yes, we played Il Divo’s Hasta mi Final at my wedding.”
You Raise Me Up. Seb pretended to be Kate Winslet in “Titanic” by leaning forward and putting his arms out. D said, “I thought you were ice skating. It’s going off the rails.”
My Way. David brought forward a stool and said, “I got this for ten bucks on eBay.”
End of concert at 2036 Pacific time.