Michael Buble Locations – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 21, 2010December 21, 2010

The Michael Buble “Crazy Love” Concert – A Second Time!

Last Monday night, my mom, my dad, the Grim Cheaper, and I all headed to Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles to attend the final show of Michael Buble’s “Crazy Love” Tour. And, as you can imagine, I could NOT have been more excited! When I attended the cutie crooner’s concert back in April of this year, the experience was extremely bittersweet for me as my dad, who – if it is at all possible – loves Michael even more than I do, was too sick to attend. Thanks to a hook-up from fellow stalker David, we had absolutely AMAZING seats and although I enjoyed myself immensely while there, I couldn’t help but be distracted by the fact that my dad was not sitting next to me, as he would absolutely died over our proximity to the stage. So, when I found out a couple of weeks ago that MB would be returning to Los Angeles to finish up his tour, I just about had a heart attack and informed the GC that, come hell or high water, we would ALL be attending – my mom, my dad, the GC, and I. You see, after three years of living with pancreatitis – to the point that he was giving himself numerous daily injections of Dilaudid pain medication at home – after over 15 surgeries and one very unsuccessful trip to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, and after literally almost missing my wedding due to pain, my dad is finally, FINALLY healthy again! As it turns out, one of his cholesterol medications was causing the pancreatitis, which we only discovered thanks to an extremely astute emergency room doctor at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, whom we happened to meet by chance after my dad’s pancreatic specialist told my mom, while en route to a West L.A. hospital in the midst of one of my dad’s attacks, that there was “nothing more he could do for him” (not kidding!). My mom immediately turned the car around and drove to Huntington, their local hospital, and the rest is history! My dad is now on his 45th day (and counting) of (relatively) no pain! Halleluiah! The bad news is that, for better or worse, he will forever have pancreatitus and will, therefore, always be subject to pain, but at least now it’s a manageable pain and he can once again live a normal life. So, to celebrate my dad’s newfound good health and his 64th birthday, which was on the 16th of December, the GC and I purchased four tickets to the MB “Crazy Love” show. Because I love surprises, we waited until the day before the concert to tell my dad of our plans and he started bawling upon opening the box and seeing the tickets. Smile One of the best moments of my life, right there.

Thanks to another hook-up from fellow stalker David, I was again able to secure FABULOUS seats to the show – in fact they were the EXACT same seats that we sat in during the previous MB concert! My dad almost died when he saw how close we were to the stage! Thank you, David!

The arena was literally JAM-PACKED with people, so the fact that we were able to get tickets at all, let alone such great ones, was absolutely incredible!

MB’s opening act was, again, Naturally 7 , an acoustic group that specializes in what they call “vocal play” – i.e. they perform without the assistance of instruments, but instead use their voices and bodies to simulate various musical instruments and sounds. And I have to say that they were absolutely A-MA-ZING! If I hadn’t been there, witnessing the whole thing with my own eyes, I would have been CONVINCED that they had instruments onstage with them!

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After Naturally 7 performed for about an hour, the lights went down and it was time for Mr. Buble to come out. He opened up the show with a rousing rendition of “Cry Me A River” and, let me tell you, the crowd went absolutely wild! But no one more so than me and my dad! My dad’s mouth literally hung open – and I am fairly certain that he also teared up a bit – upon seeing Michael step out onto that stage and realizing how very close to him we were. Smile

I can easily say that Monday night’s concert was JUST as fabulous as the one we saw in April, if not more so! Before seeing the show, I was a little worried that it would simply be a carbon copy of the previous concert and that all of Michael’s jokes were, in actuality, scripted and were not as off-the-cuff as they had seemed. But I am VERY happy to report that that was not the case AT ALL! Even though the song list was, for the most part, identical to April’s show, it truly felt as if we were attending a completely different concert, mostly due to the fact that all of Michael’s jokes and monologues were new and spontaneous. He truly plays off and engages the crowd and all of the hilarious stories we heard this time around were different than the ones he told at the previous show. LOVE IT!

And, as I mentioned last time, Buble is FUNNY! Like ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS! His show is equal parts concert/stand-up comedy act. At one point he introduced his pianist Alan Chang, who has been with him since 2003, by saying, “He is my friend, my pianist, my writing partner, my musical director, and . . . my part-time lover,” and then he broke out into a spontaneous rendition of Stevie Wonder’s 1985 hit “Part-Time Lover”. LOL LOL LOL Michael is also a fabulous impersonator and can speak in just about any accent imaginable, which he did throughout the night. He also did a fabulous impersonation of Elin Nordegren for us, during which he danced across the stage, pretending to wear clogs, while reprimanding Tiger Woods for his lascivious ways. Afterwards he said, “I’m sure she doesn’t really sound like that, but in my head she does.” Winking smile

It is also readily apparent not only how much the guy loves being onstage, but how much he enjoys interacting with his fans. One lady in the front row had a sign stating, “Michael, I’ve been with you for FORTY shows!” Well, Michael took one look at that sign, said “I have GOT to give you a hug!”, immediately jumped down to the floor, and embraced the woman. As you can imagine, I just about died over that one! I mean, is that all it takes to get a hug from Michael Buble? Oh GC, you know what that means! Next year we are going to at least forty of his shows! Winking smile

The most unique aspect of an MB concert, though, is that while there you feel as if you are hanging out with the singer in his living room. Even though there are 14,000 people surrounding you, due to his easy-going and sincere nature, Michael somehow manages to make the whole thing seem intimate and personal.

And his show is FUN! Michael is a barrel of energy and spends the entire two hours sliding across the stage, spinning around, and bouncing up and down. His jubilance is absolutely contagious and he has somehow even managed to make a fan out of the GC, who, prior to April’s concert, could just take or leave the guy.

As was the case last time, Michael was accompanied onstage by nothing more than a microphone, a stool, and his amazing band. There were no histrionics, no big dance numbers, no special effects. It was just a man and his voice and, let me tell you, he ABSOLUTELY BROUGHT DOWN THE HOUSE! He had that audience on its feet for the entire second act of the show! Even my mom and dad were standing and dancing for the last hour! So incredibly cool!

Also, much the same as last time, my favorite segment of the show definitely had to be the big Michael Jackson Tribute/”Twist & Shout” number. Michael introduced the segment by saying he was going to sing a song from the movie that won the 1986 Academy Award for Best Picture – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Then he said, “No, I’m just kidding – Ferris Bueller did not actually win the Oscar that year, but it TOTALLY should have!” LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

At one point during the concert, Michael actually walks through the audience over to the “B-Stage”, which is located on the other side of the venue. While there he sang an absolutely beautiful acoustic version of his hit song “Home” accompanied only by his guitar player. I don’t remember him singing the song in that manner during the April show and it turned out to be one of my favorite performances of the entire evening. Sigh!

Michael ended the show with his new song “Hollywood” while accompanied by Naturally 7 and it was FABULOUS. I absolutely LOVE that song!

He, of course, came back out after “Hollywood” to sing an encore, during which a cloud of confetti burst from the sky setting the stage for “Let It Snow”. Because the Christmas tune is one of my dad’s very favorite Buble songs, we could NOT have been more excited to hear it.

As always, Michael finished his encore with the Leon Russell-penned “Song For You”, which he says he hopes to end every show with for the rest of his life.

All in all, it was an ABSOLUTELY amazing night and the BEST possible present we could have ever given my dad in honor of his newfound good health! Amazingly enough, my mom actually saw the Beatles perform live in concert when she was a teenager and she said that the Michael Buble show was far more exceptional. Talk about a compliment!

A BIG, HUGE THANK YOU to fellow stalker David from both me and my dad for hooking us up with these amazing tickets! You rock, my friend! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Sadly, you can’t – last Monday night’s show was the last of Michael Buble’s “Crazy Love” Tour. But you can find out information about the singer’s upcoming appearances on his official website here. And you can follow Tory Class, MB’s Tour Marketing Manager, on Twitter at @ToryonTour here.

June 7, 2010June 15, 2010

The Former BaBalu Lounge – Where Michael Buble Got His Start

Another Michael Buble location that I found thanks to the book Michael Buble: The Biography, by Juliet Peel was BaBalu Lounge, the Downtown Vancouver nightclub where the cutie crooner performed regularly for two years before becoming famous. And, let me tell you, once I heard about it, I became pretty hell-bent on the idea of grabbing a drink at the very spot where MB had honed his craft all those years ago. As I quickly found out, though, the BaBalu Lounge is sadly no longer. Apparently, the now-defunct club used to be located on the bottom floor of the Nelson-at-Granville Comfort Inn Hotel, but in 2001, a fire broke out on the top floor of the building and completely gutted the entire property, including Michael’s former singing spot. The building was eventually purchased by a real estate development company who renovated the entire property and a new restaurant named Doolin’s Irish Pub subsequently opened in the former BaBalu space. Such a bummer! But even though BaBalu is no longer, I just had to stalk the hallowed ground where it once stood.

Especially since the club had played such an important role on Michael’s road to fame. In 2001, the singer even named his second independently produced album “BaBalu” (pictured above) in honor of the lounge where he had sung every Sunday and Monday night for over two years beginning in 1997. Of MB’s premiere album, titled “First Dance”, biographer Juliet Peel states, “It made no impact whatsoever on the world at the time, but this, and the other two independent albums Michael brought out before he hit the big time, are now collectors’ items. Whole internet chains have been established trying to track them down (for a Buble fan, finding one of these records is equivalent to stumbling across a signed first edition of an early J.K. Rowling.)” You’re telling me, Juliet! What I wouldn’t give to own one of those albums!

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Michael’s love of music was originally cultivated thanks to his beloved maternal grandfather, Mitch Santaga. Mitch, who made his living as a plumber, not only first introduced Michael to the Standards, the songs that he would one day become famous for singing, but he also traded free plumbing services to local band-leaders in exchange for them allowing MB a chance to sing during their shows. After he became famous, Michael, whom Mitch had long-before dubbed “Sunshine”, said, “Isn’t that hilarious? He’d put in, like, a hot-water dispenser or something so that they would let me get up and sing.” Love it! In 1997, Michael landed his first regular paying gig at BaBalu Lounge, where he performed along with the Smokin’ Section band, for over two years. He credits his years there as a major learning experience, saying of the patrons, “They came to meet a woman or get wasted, but I learned my craft. It taught me how not to reek of desperation, how to step back and try to be charismatic and let them fall in love with me.” And fall in love with him they did. Michael quickly garnered a very loyal local fan base of mostly women :), who would come to watch him sing every single time he set foot onstage. After two shorts years at BaBalu, MB moved to Toronto with then-girlfriend Debbie Timuss. In a fortuitous twist of fate, shortly after that move, Michael performed at a corporate event where a man named Michael Sweeney was sitting in the audience. After the show, Sweeney introduced himself to Michael, who in turn gave him one of his self-produced albums. Sweeney passed along that CD to his close friend, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who immediately hired the singer to perform at his daughter’s upcoming wedding. One of the guests at that wedding turned out to be none other than music-producing legend David Foster, who is perhaps better known by his nickname – “the hit-maker”. Foster was immediately taken with the with the Canadian crooner and had him move out to L.A. so that they could work together the very next week. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

Unfortunately, because it was raining when we arrived at Doolin’s Irish Pub, I opted to stay in the car and take pictures through the window instead of getting out to stalk the inside of the place. From what I’ve read, though, it seems like a very cool place to hang out.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Doolin’s Irish Pub, the site of the former BaBalu Nightclub, is located at 654 Nelson Street in Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the Doolin’s website here.

June 4, 2010June 6, 2010

Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame Plaque on the Vancouver Starwalk

One of the other items on my must-stalk-while-in-Canada list was Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame plaque which is located on Canada’s version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame – the Granville Street Starwalk in Downtown Vancouver. I guess you could say that my trip up to the Pacific Northwest was a full-on Michael Buble Stalking Vacation. 🙂 Ironically enough, when fellow stalker Kerry, her husband Jim, the Grim Cheaper, and I first crossed over into British Columbia this past Friday night, we were given a bit of a hard time by the border guards. Actually, “hard time” is the wrong choice of words here. Let’s just say that we were definitely questioned. Upon finding out that I had never before visited the Pacific Province, our entire group was asked to get out of the car to answer some additional queries in the Border Services Agency’s main office. It was at that point that I realized that there was no way in heck I could give a truthful answer to their question of why I was visiting Canada. Can you imagine if I had stood there and said that I had traveled to their country for the sole purpose of stalking Michael Buble locations??? They probably would have had me arrested on the spot! 😉 But I digress. Anyway, before my trip up north, I purchased Michael Buble: The Biography by Juliet Peel and, while I can’t say that the book was a particularly great read, it did alert me to some fabulous stalking sites, including Michael’s star on Vancouver’s Granville Street Starwalk.

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The British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame was founded on July 4, 1994 in order to recognize those British Columbians who had made significant contributions in six different disciplines in the entertainment industry, including music, television, theatre, film, radio, and variety. Over 180 different artists are currently honored with brass plaques embedded in the sidewalk along Canada’s so-called “Starwalk” – a two block section of Granville Street in Downtown Vancouver’s Theatre District. About twenty new plaques, which are each the size and shape of a 12-inch phonograph record, are added each year. Michael Buble, who originally hails from the Canadian city of Burnaby, was inducted into the BC Hall of Fame on April 19th, 2009, along with nine other honorees including theatre actress Wendy Gorling, radio personality Fanny Kiefer, and music producer Terry McBride. Past inductees include jazz musician Diane Krall, “King of Swing” Dal Richards, and singers Sarah McLachlan and Bryan Adams. Each Hall of Fame member also has a photograph of themselves on display in the Starwall area of the nearby Orpheum Theatre’s main lobby. Unfortunately, though, I did not know about the Orpheum gallery until doing research for today’s post, so I was not able to stalk MB’s picture. Such a bummer! 🙁

Although the Hollywood Walk of Fame provides tourist maps which denote each particular star’s exact location, the BC Entertainment Hall of Fame, sadly, does not. And, oddly enough, I could not find much information about the place online before I left on my trip, so I had no idea where exactly on Granville Street Michael Buble’s plaque was located. Since the Starwalk only stretches for two short blocks, though, I figured we could just walk the entire thing and track down his star once we got there, which is exactly what we set out to do. But being that there were almost two hundred plaques to search, that got old rather quickly, so I popped into a Granville Street bookstore and asked the man at the counter if he could point me in the direction of Michael Buble’s star. His answer – “I didn’t even know he had one.” LOL Thankfully, though, while I was in the bookstore, Kerry and my fiancé managed to find MB’s star and I have to say that I was rather giddy with excitement upon seeing it. It was definitely worth the trouble it took to find it! Note to the British Columbia Hall of Fame – you really ought to provide maps which pinpoint the exact location of each honoree’s plaque. I mean, honestly, do I have to think of everything? Sheesh! 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Michael Buble’s British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame plaque can be found just outside of the Mavi Jeans store, which is located at 850 Granville Street in Vancouver, Canada. You can read more about the Starwalk on the official British Columbia Entertainment Hall of Fame website here.

June 3, 2010April 30, 2013

Killarney Market from Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” Video

Now don’t laugh, but the primary reason behind the Grim Cheaper’s and my trip up to the Pacific Northwest this past weekend was so that I could stalk the spot where Michael Buble filmed the music video for his hit song “Haven’t Met You Yet” – Killarney Market in Vancouver, British Columbia. Sure, we also wanted to sightsee, spend some time in Seattle and Canada, and visit with our good friends Kerry and Jim who live in the area, but, all kidding aside, the main purpose of our trip was to stalk that grocery store. Yes, we traveled over 1,000 miles to see a supermarket! You see, ever since I first watched the “Haven’t Met You Yet” video back in early October of last year, I promised myself that I would one day get up to Vancouver to see the Michael Buble grocery store in person. That day came much sooner than expected, though, thanks to my fiancé’s boss, who recently presented us with Virgin America gift certificates as an early wedding present. Well, let me tell you, my first thought upon seeing those certificates was, ‘We’re going to Canada, Baby!’ And, sure enough, we did! Thanks to fellow stalker Kerry, who completely organized the trip and drove about four hours out of her way to pick us up at the airport, not only did I get to stalk the Michael Buble grocery store, but a slew of other Pacific Northwest locations, as well, which I will be blogging about over the next few weeks. Anyway, upon landing at the Sea-Tac International Airport at around 5 p.m. this past Friday evening, Kerry, her husband Jim, the Grim Cheaper, and I headed north to Vancouver, British Columbia. And bright and early the following morning we hit up Killarney Market to finally do some “Haven’t Met You Yet” stalking. YAY!

I should explain here that there are quite a few reasons why I wanted to stalk Killarney Market so badly, the most obvious of which being that I absolutely LOVE Michael Buble. More than that, though, I also absolutely ADORE the “Haven’t Met You Yet” video, which centers around Michael doing some shopping at a local grocery store. While in the freezer section picking out some microwavable TV dinners, he spots his dream girl (who is played by MB’s real life fiancé Luisana Lopilato) standing just a few feet away from him. He approaches her and the two sing and dance their way through the store, eventually winding up in the parking lot, marching band in tow. The video ends with Michael standing in the check-out aisle, belting out his song, eyes closed, before realizing that the whole scenario had been imagined. As he leaves the grocery store, slightly embarrassed, the girl he had envisioned in his daydream brushes past him. MB stops for a moment to stare after her and then continues on his way. “Haven’t Met You Yet” is an incredibly fun-spirited romp that makes one want to get out of their seat and dance, which is a big part of why I loved it so much. But the fact that it was filmed in a grocery store made the video even more special to me, as my father managed supermarkets throughout my entire childhood. To me, the video felt a little bit like home. 🙂

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I am very happy to report that Killarney Market looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in Michael’s video – minus the ticker tape and marching band, of course. 😉 I am also very happy to report that the Killarney employees could NOT have been nicer to us and literally almost fell over when they heard that we had traveled all the way from Southern California to see their store. They were happy to answer all of my silly questions about the filming, which took place over the course of two nights in September of 2009, and they let me take all of the photographs of the place that I wanted. YAY! And while the employees that I spoke with weren’t exactly sure of how the grocery store premise of the video came to be, they did tell me that Killarney’s Market was specifically chosen as the “Haven’t Met You Yet” location because it reminded MB of a store he had shopped at as a child. So cool! (Note – my parents just gifted me with a new, hi-tech camera and I haven’t yet figured out exactly how to use it, so, sadly, my pictures of the market didn’t come out as well as they should have.)

One of the employees even showed me a picture on his blackberry that he had taken with Michael during the filming. So, I, of course, had to snap a photograph of it. 🙂 I can’t tell you what I wouldn’t do to have my picture taken with MB like that!!! Sigh!

Another of the employees ended up taking us on a little mini-tour of the specific locations used in the video, which I thought was just about the coolest thing ever!!!! 🙂 The areas of the store which appeared in “Haven’t Met You Yet” include the freezer section (Aisle 6), which was both where Michael first spotted Luisana;

and where the two danced atop the freezer cases;

the meat counter adjacent to Aisle 1, where the butcher got jiggy with it;

Aisle 7, where the mattress floated down the aisle;

Aisle 4, where the marching band played;

the front of the store where the grand finale began;

the front parking lot where the grand finale ended;

Check-out counter Number 3, where MB got caught day-dreaming;

the side entrance of the store, where he walked by Luisana at the end of the video;

and the shelf where Michael sat throughout the video, which is located in the middle of Aisle 1. Apparently, the managers of Killarney’s weren’t too excited about the prospect of MB sitting on one of their shelves during the filming as they were worried it might collapse, so producers ended up having the shelf reinforced and tying metal wires to the singer to guard against him falling. I so love that Michael’s shelf was left a bit lower than the adjacent shelves, as it appeared in the video.

I cannot tell you what a thrill it was for me to finally be able to stalk the “Haven’t Met You Yet” grocery store! It was definitely the highlight of my entire trip! You can watch the video by clicking above and you can see some FABULOUS behind-the-scenes pictures of the filming of the video on the Killarney Market Facebook page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Killarney Market from Michael Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet” music video is located at 2611 49th Avenue East in Vancouver, British Columbia. You can visit the market’s official Facebook page here.

April 13, 2010June 6, 2010

The Michael Buble Crazy Love Concert

As I have mentioned countless times before on this blog, this stalker is one hundred percent, head over heels in love with cutie crooner Michael Buble. In fact, my fiancé and I are currently in the midst of creating our wedding slide show and the vast majority of songs I picked out to play during it are, of course, Michael Buble songs, which had my fiancé griping, “Lindsay, not EVERY song can be by him! Let’s have some variety!” Being that my dad and I are doing our Father/Daughter dance to “Save The Last Dance”, also by MB, I guess I am going to have to concede his point. Otherwise our wedding might just turn into a Michael Buble dance party. Which, now that I think about it, wouldn’t actually be such a bad thing. But I digress. So, when tickets for Michael’s Crazy Love Tour went on sale a few months back, I tried to purchase some for my parents, my fiancé, and myself. Sadly, though, the show sold out within minutes and I was turned away empty-handed. I did manage to find some on the ticket resale website StubHub a few weeks later, but seats were going for about $350 a piece. I almost bought them, too, but the Grim Cheaper put his foot down and told me in no uncertain terms that “no way, no how” was I to buy those tickets. Needless to say, I was crushed. Then, a few weeks ago, I happened to mention my desire to see MB in concert in my blog post about the Michael Buble Suite at the Best Western Alderwood Hotel and, as fate would have it, fellow stalker David immediately emailed me and said he might be able to hook me up with tickets. And, sure enough, he did! I got a call from him at about 1 p.m. this past Friday afternoon saying that he had two very reasonably priced tickets for that evening’s show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles if I wanted them. I was driving at the time and, let me tell you, I just about crashed into a tree I was so excited. I immediately called up my fiancé to tell him the news, but I was so keyed up he couldn’t understand me. He kept saying, “Lindsay, slow down! Calm down! I don’t know what it is you’re trying to tell me!” He told me later that at the time he actually thought I had been in an accident or something. LOL For the rest of the day, I could hardly sit still due to excitement as I knew that in just a few short hours I would be at the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles waiting for Michael Buble to take the stage! YAY!

David had told me when he called that the seats he had secured were good ones. And, while I knew that we would be sitting fairly close to the stage (we were in Row 17), I had NO IDEA how close we would actually be. The above picture is my reaction when we entered the arena and saw our seats for the very first time. I was literally DYING!

And while our tickets stated that we were sitting in “Row 17”, our seats were, in actuality, only six rows back from the side of the stage. You can see in the above photograph how incredibly close we actually were. The moment I first saw the stage and realized our close proximity to it was extremely bittersweet for me, as I had planned on bringing my dad to the show that night. Unfortunately, though, he was not feeling well and was unable to accompany me, which absolutely broke my heart. My dad is an even bigger MB fan than I am (if that’s possible!) and he would have ABSOLUTELY DIED to have attended one of his concerts sitting in the kind of seats that we had. 🙁 My dad not being there was truly my only regret of the night, though. The rest of the evening was sheer perfection!

The night’s opening act was a group called Naturally 7, whom I was already familiar with from the song “Stardust”, which is featured on MB’s Crazy Love CD. Naturally 7 is a group of 7 – duh! 🙂 – performers who specialize in what they call “Vocal Play”, a method of beat-boxing in which they use their voices, mouths, and bodies to impersonate instruments such as trombones, harmonicas, trumpets, and drums. They were simply incredible and if I had closed my eyes throughout their performance I would have been convinced that there were actual instruments onstage. Thanks to their jazzy-type sound, they were the absolute perfect opening act for a Michael Buble show.

At around 9 p.m., after Naturally 7 left the stage, the lights finally dimmed and the strains of “Cry Me A River” came blasting through the arena. Michael first appeared as a shadow behind a white curtain, conducting his band, and then the curtain slowly parted and there he was! Standing about 30 feet in front of me! Sigh! I borrowed my dad’s camera for the concert, as his is a lot better than mine, but unfortunately, due to the incredibly bright lights on stage, most of my pictures did not come out. Such a shame, too, as we really could have gotten some amazing shots of Michael.

After his big opener, MB addressed the crowd, something he actually does quite frequently throughout the show. As New York Post writer Dan Aquilante wrote in his March 22nd review of Michael’s recent Madison Square Garden concert, “The one trick that can’t be borrowed or learned is genuineness. There’s nothing phony about Buble. When he speaks to the crowd, it’s as if you’re in his living room.” Couldn’t have said it better myself! Michael very early on established the fact that this would not be your typical concert, but that he instead wanted us to think of it like a party – a party with 14,000 guests, no less, but still a party. He said that he would not be standing onstage simply singing songs while looking down at his shoes, but that we were “in it together” and if we wanted to sing along, that we should absolutely sing along, that if we wanted to dance, we should get out of our seats and shake our caboose, and that if the people behind us didn’t like it, well, we should just . . . and then he stuck up his middle finger and waved it out at the crowd, Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off-style. LOL I guess it goes without saying that the guy is absolutely HILARIOUS! I had seen him in enough interviews to know that he was funny, but I had no idea how funny until this past Friday night.

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Michael Buble is an absolute and total goofball and, as you can see in the above photographs, spends the vast majority of his time onstage laughing. LOVE IT! It is blindingly obvious how much he enjoys performing and that sheer kind of joy is nothing if not contagious.

He also spends a lot of time having actual conversations with people in the audience. One lady asked him if he was married, as he appeared to be wearing a wedding ring, which you can see in the above picture. He explained, though, that he had just recently gotten engaged to his Argentinean girlfriend, Luisana Loreley Lopilato de la Torre. The woman who had asked the question cried out, “Oh, I’m Argentinean, too!”, to which Michael said, “Well, then you know! It is customary in your culture for a man to also wear an engagement ring.” The woman gave him a blank stare and then MB said, “OK, I guess not! Well, she sure had me fooled!” LOL See what I mean – HILARIOUS! Buble also does spot-on impersonations and can speak in hundreds of different accents, which he did throughout the night. It very quickly became exceedingly obvious that Michael Buble is not a singer, but an all-out performer.

What amazed me most about the show, though, was the fact that, aside from one set of pyrotechnics that was released during the opening song, the entire night was completely devoid of spectacle. There were no histrionics, no big dance ensembles, no videos playing in the background. Michael was accompanied onstage solely by a microphone, a stool, and his band. When you have a voice like his, everything else is just a distraction.

And, let me tell you, he had that audience on its feet the ENTIRE NIGHT LONG! He’s truly an OUTSTANDING performer and he gives no less than 100% the entire one hour and forty minutes that he is onstage. He runs around, dances his goofy Michael Buble-type dances, cracks jokes, and tells stories. And he is absolutely enchanting!

Before we left for the concert, my dad told my fiancé that he would no doubt be a Buble-fanatic by the end of the night, to which I said, “Are you kidding me? The Grim Cheaper is going to be sitting there the entire time thinking about the amount of money the tickets set him back.” LOL To my astonishment, though,the G.C. had a BLAST! There were points in the evening when he was absolutely doubled over in laughter thanks to MB’s onstage antics and I even caught him tapping his foot along with the music a few times. What’s even more telling is that at one point he ventured outside of the arena to use the restroom and I asked if he’d stop at one of the concert kiosks to buy me a T-shirt I had been eyeing. When he returned from the restroom empty-handed, I asked about my T-shirt and he explained that, while waiting in line, he heard Michael start to sing “Home”, so he immediately rushed back inside as he didn’t want to miss it! I guess my dad was right, after all – the Grim Cheaper has definitely become a Michael Buble fan. 🙂

My favorite part of the concert, though, had to be when MB talked about his childhood. Buble told the audience that most fans incorrectly assume that Frank Sinatra was his childhood music idol, when in actuality he loved none other than the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson! As you can imagine, I just about died upon hearing that! He went on to say that growing up he spent quite a bit of time on his father’s boat – his father was a professional salmon fisherman – and every time MB got a break during the day, he would go down to the galley and watch a little movie called Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He said he absolutely LOVED the parade float scene and credits it with giving him his original desire to perform. Sigh! A Michael Jackson AND John Hughes fan? Could this guy be any more perfect??? Then MB went on to perform an awesome “Billie Jean/Twist and Shout” medley, during which he even did the Moonwalk!, and, let me tell you, I just about died! It was SO MUCH FUN! You can watch a similar medley from Michael Buble’s Madison Square Garden concert by clicking above.

For the grand finale, Michael sang his latest hit song “Haven’t Met You Yet”, which is one of my favorites. I couldn’t believe it when the confetti first started to pour down from the ceiling signaling the end of the show, though, as it had seemed to me that only about 25 minutes had passed since Michael first took to the stage. In actuality, it had been almost ninety! As they say, time FLIES when you’re having fun. I literally could have sat there all night listening to him perform. He was PHENOMENAL. After the grand finale, MB came back out for an encore of three more numbers, including “Song For You” which he said he ends every single show with. During the final stanza of the song he astonished the crowd by dropping his microphone to the floor and singing to us without using anything to amplify his voice. Let me tell you, you could have heard a pin drop in that room, the crowd was so wowed. His voice was so incredibly powerful, it was almost unbelievable. It was an absolutely amazing end to an absolutely amazing evening – one I will never forget for the rest of my life. I literally don’t think I breathed once during the entire show. Even now, days later, my Michael Buble fog has yet to lift and my pulse rate is just beginning to return to normal. 🙂

A HUGE, TREMENDOUS, AND VERY HEARTFELT THANK YOU TO DAVID FOR HOOKING ME UP WITH THE CONCERT TICKETS! WORDS CAN’T EXPRESS HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE WHAT YOU DID! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: You can find out about Michael Buble’s upcoming tour dates on his official website here. The next leg of his tour begins on May 6th, 2010 in the United Kingdom.

April 1, 2010June 6, 2010

The Michael Buble Suite at the Best Western Alderwood Hotel

As I’ve mentioned numerous times on this blog, my celebrity crush as of late is Canadian crooner Michael Buble. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the guy and his music! So, when my good friend and fellow stalker Kerry went on a business trip to the Seattle area a few months back and noticed that her hotel, the Best Western Alderwood, had a “Buble Suite” she immediately called me up to let me know. And, as you can probably imagine, I practically had a heart attack right there on the spot. It was at that point that I vowed to someday travel to the City of Lynnwood in the southwestern portion of Washington State to not only stalk the Best Western Alderwood, but to also spend a night in the actual “Buble Suite”. Especially since Michael filmed his “Haven’t Met You Yet” video at the Killarney Market in Vancouver, Canada which is just a short two hour drive from the hotel. (See the kind of stuff my fiancé has to deal with? It’s amazing I was ever proposed to! When I first told him of my intended Seattle travel plans, I believe his exact words were, “You want me to drive you two hours to see a grocery store?” Needless to say, I doubt we’ll be making the trip to Lynnwood anytime soon.) Anyway, Kerry didn’t take any photographs of the hotel for me on that particular trip, so I begged her to stop by there on her next visit to the Seattle area, which she did last month. Thank you, Kerry! And while I don’t typically blog about locations that I haven’t personally visited myself, this one was just too good to pass up. 🙂

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The Best Western Alderwood is not your typical five-star, celebrity-laden lodging, but from from what Kerry was able to gather from the super nice people she spoke with, Michael Buble, who hails from nearby Vancouver, is apparently a longtime family friend of the hotel’s General Manager. Sometime in the past couple of years, the singer stayed on the property – in Room Number 107, to be exact – and afterwards the General Manager named the suite in his honor. Which is something I really think all hotels should do! I mean, how GREAT would it be to know the exact room numbers where certain celebrities have stayed at different hotels all across the world? You can bet I’d be booking the Jennifer Aniston Suite at every hotel I stayed at if that was the case! 😉 I actually think it was pretty common practice back in the day to name hotel rooms after the famous guests who had stayed there and I, for one, think that practice needs to be brought back! Stat! So, kudos to you Best Western Alderwood! May all hotels follow suit! Kerry also found out that some of Michael’s family members frequently stay at the BW Alderwood, as well, so if you happen to check in there and spot an MB lookalike, chances are it might be his relation! 🙂

But not only did the hotel name a room after the cutie crooner, they also adorned the wall behind the front desk with his photographs, autographs, and other MB memorabilia. SO LOVE IT! You don’t even understand how BADLY I want to see all of this with my own two eyes! I was practically salivating while looking at Kerry’s photographs! Hopefully I’ll get there someday!

On a Michael Buble side note – For those who missed his “Hamm and Buble” skit on Saturday Night Live back in January, you so need to check it out – and can do so by clicking above! It’s absolutely HILARIOUS! I swear I’ve seen it about twenty times now and literally never get tired of it. Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for finding this location and stalking it for me, twice! 😉

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Best Western Alderwood is located at 19332 36th Avenue W in Lynnwood, Washington. The Buble Suite is Room Number 107. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. His “Haven’t Met You Yet” video was filmed at the Killarney Market which is located at 2611 East 49th Avenue in Vancouver, Canada.