I’ve always thought Anthony Callea was talented, but it took him covering the music of George Michael to turn me from casual admirer to a concert goer. The scheduling of his Twilight at Taronga concert on Valentine’s Day also didn’t hurt. The zoo’s one of my favourite places in the whole world, so the idea of spending the most romantic day of the year there, capped off by a concert was irresistible.
Sadly the weather gods didn’t realise just what a perfect evening it was supposed to be. My husband and I were soggy in ponchos, umbrellas overhead as we waited on the zoo’s concert lawns. Support act Caterina Torres provided a pleasant enough distraction from the gloomy weather. She’s got a lovely voice, but this Voice graduate never really wowed me. Her originals showed some real promise, and I appreciated her decision to play with only the accompaniment of a bandmate on acoustic guitar. However, her predictable covers of top 40 hits were a bit bland. I suppose you’ve got to appeal to the masses at this sort of show, but it all never got to the next gear for me.
It was almost as if the weather gods understood that Anthony Callea was the main event and that we should be focusing on him rather than the rain when he took the stage. We were treated with clear skies for his set chockfull of George Michael hits. I had a ball when I went and saw George a few years back, and I wondered whether Anthony could do the songs justice. I knew he had the voice for them, but I had a question mark over the charisma. However, he charmed the pants off me. His connection to these songs is evident, so you feel them just as deeply as you did when George sang them originally.
I felt a serious bout of déjà vu swooning over yet another gay man singing sexy songs like “Father Figure” and “Fastlove.” His version of “Kissing a Fool” could have stood to have been slowed down a little to capture the jazzy lounge feel of the original, but with just an hour and a quarter on the clock I guess sacrifices need to be made. Backing vocalist Susie Ahern was more than capable of taking over Mary J. Blige’s vocals for “As,” but again I was a little less enthusiastic about Caterina’s role in “I Knew You Were Waiting For Me.” Aretha Franklin’s soul shoes are big, but this version wasn’t a patch on the one Anthony laid down with Casey Donovan on the album.
Given the time restraints on a zoo concert, I wasn’t sure that we’d get an encore. But what an encore. The moment I heard the first strains of Wham!’s “I’m Your Man” I knew I couldn’t just settle for the chair dancing I’d been doing all night. I left my bag and husband behind and sprang down the front, joining the throng of people soaking up one last song. To experience one of my favourite George Michael songs so unexpectedly as it didn’t make Anthony’s recent album was such a fitting way to end one of the most fun, fabulous concert experiences I’ve had in some time.
Image source: own photos