Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By PETER SMITH
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2000
What's the difference between a style and a rut?
Well, Billie Holiday had a style. Metallica has a rut. Pat Metheny has a style. The Backstreet Boys have a rut. The way you recognize a style is, can the musician do anything else besides that style? If not, it's a rut.
Julio Iglesias demonstrated no concept of this idea at Ruth Eckerd Hall on Friday night. It isn't even that he can't sing, although his voice might actually be thinner than Bob Dylan's. It is that there is no variety to his music. Every song is mid range, mid tempo, and drenched with enough electronic echo to make Pee-wee Herman sound like James Earl Jones. In fact, whenever Iglesias told one of his almost incomprehensible stories, the echo remained on the sound system like a Spanish Darth Vader.
Iglesias never failed to please his audience with these songs. Even songs that should be able to stand up to his blandness, like Willie Nelson's Crazy or Let It Be Me, were practically indistinguishable from the songs that surrounded them.
What appeared to be an excellent band was overwhelmed time and again by great pillows of synthesized chords that blanketed so much of the evening's arrangements that when the band wasn't playing, it was a palpable relief. The band's fine players had to battle through those synth washes just to be heard.
As the evening wore on, Iglesias brought dancers and other singers out to change the pitch of the evening. When he wasn't the center of attention, he seemed to relax. An absolutely brilliant tango duet showed the clarity and mastery Iglesias strived for over and over again. The dancers seemed to tighten the band as well, as did four female singers (whom Iglesias only introduced by their first names).
The audience was encouraged to float on those synth pillows, a comforting approach to music that is guaranteed not to startle the listener. This is almost certainly Iglesias' appeal (just as it is Metallica's and the Backstreet Boys'): that feeling that you are safe, there will be no reggae, no rock, no simple unadorned voices, no chance of an unpleasant surprise of any kind.
Not everybody likes surprises, of course; sometimes there is something to be said for being lulled. And lull us this evening did, on beautiful chords, fine playing and uneventful singing. Once again, not bad, just not much of anything.
Even when Iglesias made his Elvis move (with I Can't Help Falling in Love With You), there was no surprise. Same rhythm, same mid range singing that bordered on talking. Not an unpleasant sound, but unquestionably not an interesting one.
Only when Iglesias left the stage at the end of the evening did that fine band find a groove and push it (with Tito Puente's Oye Como Va). "The music is getting interesting and he's leaving? That can't be right!" But sure enough.
If all you really ask of music is that it not hurt you, Julio Iglesias is here for you, returning Wednesday to Ruth Eckerd. Enjoy.