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  • Ottawa Show Review - By Road Reporter Emily!

    Here is the Ottawa Official Road Reporter review from Josh's Straight To You Tour by Emcat! Want to enter to win for a chance to be Josh's Official Road Reporter? Get all the contest details HERE.


    Before I write anything else,I'd like to thank Josh, Darren and Sarah for the opportunity to do this. When I found out that I had won the contest to be the road reporter for Ottawa I was ecstatic. When I initially opened the email, all I could manage to say was something along the lines of "Oh my god, Oh my god, Josh, Ottawa.." and my mother thought something was terribly wrong.However once we managed to sort things out about what was really happening, my mom and I, fresh off Josh's London concert the previous night, began jumping up and down in our hotel room.

    The night of the concert my mom and I arrived at the ScotiaBank Centre at about 6 pm to pick up the meet & greet passes and our tickets. The doors opened at 7 pm and we went in to wait to be taken backstage. There were four other FOJG meet & greet winners with their guests, as well as some contest winners from the local media, and people from the charity Josh was supporting that night. The FOJG members were the first to meet Josh, and we lined up "execution style" in the hallway to wait for him to come out. Josh suddenly appeared from behind a black curtain to the delight of everyone in line. Unfortunately I became quite starstruck when I saw him only managing to mumble a few words about loving his music and how it "uh helped me through my uh divorce and uh stuff." I only wish I'd had a little more sense, and at least introduced myself as the road reporter for Ottawa! Josh was very kind though and then it was all over and my mom and I returned to our sixth row seats to wait for the concert to begin. The stage was set with a wall with an arch coming out of it, on which images and colours were projected during the show, many percussion instruments, two pianos (one for the opening artist), a drum kit, an organ and some Fiji water and orange Gatorade for Josh to drink.

    ELEW opened the show with his unique brand of music known as rockjazz. He started out with an amazing rendition of "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers.He then played "The Diary of Jane" by Breaking Benjamin before fusing crowd favourite "Sweet Home Alabama" with other tunes such as "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." ELEW delighted the audience and was a phenomenal musician to watch.

    Josh's set began with an instrumental version of "Straight to You," then Josh appeared on the rear stage set up in the middle of the stadium. Josh started with the song "changing Colours," originally by the Great Lake Swimmers and continued with "February Song." He then talked about how charmed he had been by Ottawa, where he spent his two days off. Josh joked about the pushy Canadian geese he encountered while taking a 20 mile bike ride. He also took in the historical Canadian light show on Parliament Hill. Josh finished his set on the back stage with a beautiful version of "You Are Loved," and then ran through the crowd to the main stage.
    On the main stage, Josh kicked it off with a very passionate rendition of "Oceano." Josh was very talkative, engaging with the audience throughout the show. He made the audience laugh with a drinking game based on his Canadian connections - a song by the Great Lake Swimmers to open the show, being discovered by Canadian David Foster, and his first performance being with Celine Dion. From this he segued into a song that was originally sung by Celine Dion in English as "Just Walk Away" which had been translated into "get the hell outta here" in Spanish - better known as "Alejate." After this song, Groban chatted with the audience again, pointing out the Grobanite Access Points or GAPs - the stairs leading to the stage, and asking an audience member what their favourite thing to do in Ottawa was (answer: drink), as well as speaking to a couple other audience members. Josh spoke about how all the people in Ottawa, and Canada, were so hospitable, leading to audience cheers - something he'd never heard before, a shout-out to hospitality!

    Josh continued with the music playing some songs from his latest album, "Bells of New York City," a heartfelt "Higher Window," and another song with a Canadian connection, "Au Jardin Des Sans Pourquoi." He dedicated the last one to the late Kate McGarrigle who cowrote the song with her son Rufus Wainwright, and was the only song they ever wrote together. This was definitely not one of my favourite songs on the album, however his performance in Ottawa of the song was absolutely beautiful and completely changed my mind about the song!

    Josh then continued with a great rendition of "Alla Luce Del Sole," during which the band was amazing, totally together and with great energy. He then continued joking with the audience, saying almost anything to "make em laugh," before turning to more serious subject matter, talking about the veterans of war and playing his tribute to them, "War at Home."
    Josh then disappeared from stage for a bit while some instruments were moved around and his backing musicians played an instrumental interlude. Josh returned to play a fabulous drum solo and then went into "Voce Existe Em Mim," during which he also played another drum solo. It's always a treat to see Josh play the drums and to see what an excellent and diverse musician he really is.

    After this, it was time for a little question and answer from questions texted in by audience members. Patricia from Peru asked him if he could be an ice cream flavour what flavour would he be and why? Josh's response entailed the "fastest moving ice cream ever!" and was disgusting: a mix of espresso, because he's wound up all the time, chocolate chips because he has a warm voice like hot chocolate, however in this statement his voice ended up cracking, sending the audience into hysterics, and hot peppers because he likes spicy things. Ruby then asked what Josh liked about Ottawa, and he said that the people charmed him, they're so "damn lovely," and friendly, and there was amazing food in Ottawa. Camille then asked if he'd bring anyone on stage to sing. Josh asked her if she could bring it, which she said she could, snapping her fingers at him. Josh then invited Camille up onto the back stage and the two of them sang a bit of "When You Say You Love Me," with Camille getting a standing ovation from the audience! Josh then stayed on the second stage with Tariqh (his guitar player and music director) for "Galileo," and then played "Wandering Kind" on the piano.

    For each show Josh has been supporting a local charity with his new Find Your Light foundation. In Ottawa, his charity was OrKidstra which helps kids get involved in music. He dedicated his next song "If I Walk Away" to them.

    Josh brought on the energy,singing two songs from his last "Awake" album, "Weeping" and an incredibly energetic ,"Machine," during which he ran back and forth across the stage and Mark Stevens played an awesome piano solo. Josh then introduced all his backing musicians, and didn't forget to thank the crew for all their hard work too!

    At this point Josh did something which he'd also done in his Before We Begin tour, bringing audience members up on stage. He found a couple who'd been together for forty years, nine year old Emma who'd he'd spoken to earlier in the show, and a single lady up to sit on the stage in "Casa da Groban," complete with inflatable couches, wine and milk for Emma. Josh had to ask the audience if the 20 year old single lady was legally allowed to drink, which she was in Canada, joking that he could get arrested for having this much fun in the States! Josh then sang the most beautiful song about cheating, "Broken Vow." He dedicated his final song "Per Te" to the people on stage, wishing the couple another 40 years, for the lady to have her heart swept away by a man on a unicorn whisking her away to the fjords, and hoping that Emma would drink milk for as long as possible!

    The crowd was on their feet before Josh even left the stage and he was back quickly to play an encore. He charmed the audience with "Play Me" by Neil Diamond. Josh's absolute final song of the evening was "You Raise Me Up," which he invited the audience to sing along with, even changing the words from "until you sit awhile" to "until you SING awhile with me," since he didn't have a gospel choir on this tour, having spent the budget on the wall set behind him.

    The audience loved Josh, and although he is always amazing to watch live, I felt that tonight was the best I'd ever seen him, and that he was exceptional. His band was phenomenal, everyone was so in sync with each other and everyone on stage seemed to be having a blast. I only hope that Josh will go on tour again soon!

Submitted by jgSarah on