Frontier Touring and Illusive present… Brian McKnight with Dwele and Barry Southgate presented at venues throughout Australia.
Within the busy CBD area of the downtown of Australia’s capital, Sydney, lies a concert hall that goes be the name of the Metro Theatre. With the doors opening at 8:00PM, local Barry Southgate takes the stage at twenty after.
Barry, who was born in South Africa, made his way to Australia at a young age. Growing up listening to one of his idols, Mr. Brian McKnight, Barry could have only dreamed of touring with him. Now Barry is touring his home country as an opener/guest act for the iconic McKnight proving that he is going to go far.
Southgate started off be covering Katy Perrys, California Girl, to explain that I bet none of the listeners were expecting a Katy Perry song at a Brian McKnight concert. Following that he did another pop cover of UK star Jessie J’s Price Tag. Being a pop music junkie, that was the highlight of my night. Barry then continued by performing an original gospel song, and finished with his hit single ‘Don’t You Think’. After a short, but sweet set, Barry had already set a high bar for the following acts to perform under.
After a break that felt like forever (but was only 10 minutes), 5 time nominee of the grammy awards, Dwele made his way to the stage. Dwele played a 40 minute set, that was directed to the fans, like no artist has done before. He serenaded a fan on stage, sang to a fans phone on record, and even took a 10 minute stroll through the crowd. Dwele, who claimed to be the Pick Up line king, talked about his album, made some jokes, and told us some of his infamous pick up lines. Leaving the crowd crying from laughter, and star struck from his walk about, Dwele set the stage for the headliner Brian McKnight.
One of his first tours without a band, Brian McKnight shows his musical skills with his variety of instrumental skills and his gross vocal spectrum (gross used in the term of LARGE). He played his first 3 songs, then took time to explain how his musical career went. He explained how he started out, all self taught, playing churches, and even gave us samples of the phases of music that he played. He sampled mozart, jazz, gospel, just to name a few. He then went to his guitar, strum and sang a few songs, then went back to his piano to end his show. He took some questions and answered them allowd, than played a 4 song encore. After 16 CD’s and well over 20 years in the business; Mr. McKnight was proving that he still has it. Releasing a new CD on July 12, he helped promote it by playing his single ‘Fall 5.0’.
All in all, with the a hot line up starting with local Barry Southgate, detroit star Dwele, and headliner Brian McKnight, the crowd was sad for it to come to end (however it did extend an extra half hour). And left by bragging Brian to come back annually. Hopefully McKnight gets the idea that he is loved down under, and some of his greatest fans will get to see him more often!
