Benson Boone is a ridiculous young man.
That was the main takeaway from the 23-year-old’s performance Friday night at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, the debut show of his first all-arena tour that will see him play more than 50 cities across the next three months.
The Washington state native emerged in 2021 as a competitor on “American Idol” who found a burst of self confidence that led to him leaving the show, despite landing in the Top 24.
It was a smart move, given that it’s been ages since “Idol” has produced an actual star. Boone, or someone managing him, realized it made far more sense to forgo network television and lean into his increasing TikTok popularity, which helped fuel interest in his early singles “Ghost Town” and “In the Stars.”
But it was last year’s “Beautiful Things” that blew Boone out of teenage phones and into the mainstream. And Boone was more than ready for the spotlight, with a sound that filtered ’70s glam rock and sleek ’80s pop through a modern sensibility and a flamboyant look clearly modeled after his hero Freddie Mercury (even if he comes off more like the late magician Doug Henning). Think an American Harry Styles with more teeth and bigger muscles.
Oh, and he does back flips.
Friday night, Boone pulled out every trick in his repertoire, radiating with the intensity of a vaudeville-era star playing to the cheapest seats in the house. He’s got a strong, if not particularly nuanced, voice that served him well over the lustful screams from the audience, which was heavy on young women and families.
In addition to his back flips (I lost count at five), Boone spent the 95-minute show sprinting up and down the catwalk that stretched across the arena floor, stopping to grab fans’ hands in the pit below and staring directly into the cameras that followed his every move, beaming his mug to the entire sold-out arena.
Yes, Benson Boone tries really hard. He was fun to watch at times, but he got tiring. The music business is full of brooding cool kids afraid to show too much effort, so I suppose it’s refreshing to see someone wholeheartedly embrace fame at its biggest, brightest and tackiest. But, man, even Katy Perry would look at this guy and suggest he tone it down a bit.
As for the music, the tour is built around the tracks from his sophomore album “American Heart,” which hit streaming some six weeks after the tour went on sale and fans paid hundreds for tickets. Boone has said Bruce Springsteen was a key influence on the record, but hearing the songs live only reinforced that he sounds more like the Killers’ plastic take on the Boss. (The Killers have made exactly one great album and that’s “Hot Fuss.” I will die on this hill.)
Take “Mystical Magical,” which “SNL” fans might remember from Boone’s appearance on the show in May. Its rinky dink synths sound torn from Styles’ far superior “As It Was,” while the chorus interpolates the hook from Olivia Newton-John’s classic “Physical.” That’s not even a novel move, as Doja Cat did the exact same thing with “Physical” just four years ago on the, yes, far superior “Kiss Me More.”
Even more so live than on record, “Momma Song” sounded like a half dozen other tracks in Boone’s repertoire. Like much of his material, it was all surface and no depth, a sparkly bauble made of tin foil.
Then again, I don’t know that the crowd cared that his songs all start to blend together. They came to see Benson Boone belt his tunes, preen for the cameras and do back flips. He delivered on all three fronts.
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