Today marks a day that I’ve had memorized since around second grade, Aaron Carter’s birthday! I remember every year on December seventh when I was in grade school I would go up to my friends and say “guess what today is!” They would never remember, but I would always happily inform them that it’s Aaron Carter’s birthday! Even all these years later, it’s one of the few dates I can spout off the top of my head.

To celebrate Aaron’s 26th birthday , I thought I would write a post that’s long overdue – my review of his concert in Cincinnati (well, Newport) this September!

I had already seen Aaron once this past year, in June, but was no less excited to see him again and meet him a second time. On September 27th, my fiancé and I drove to a church-turned-bar on a side street in Newport, Kentucky. We walked in to a room with a stage at one end, and stood in the gathering crowd to await the beginning of the concert (we arrived an hour early to make sure we got a good spot). The crowd buzzed with conversation and anticipation as people trickled in.

Then the concert started. Aaron’s opening act, Jayceon ( @iamjayceon on twitter) had some good songs and impressive talent. Notable to me was that his songs’ message is not what you typically hear from rap music, but that just made it better in some ways. Also impressive about Jayceon was that he managed to squeeze showing off his talents and interacting with the audience in to a time frame that didn’t make the crowd feel like his performance was dragging on. He preformed just long enough to get the crowd excited.

A short pause later and a group of instrumentalists came on stage. When they started preforming, they seemed like another opening act until, out of nowhere Aaron ran on stage! A creative way to surprise his audience and not keep them waiting too long like many performers do these days.

Aaron brought an incredible amount of energy on stage and maintained it throughout the entire concert. He acted like he was preforming for a crowd of 50,000 instead of a crowd of 50. Also impressive was the fact that the live band he started with accompanied him throughout the entire concert. There was no singing to a prerecorded track, or singing over his own CD. The entire performance was obviously live, and his amazing vocal talent shone through. Anyone at the concert that night has no doubt of why he was in a Broadway show. Besides showcasing his musical talent, he also gave the audience a taste of his athletic side. He spent the entire concert dancing around stage and even did some flips, which also added to his stage presence. He definitely came a long way from a Nickelodeon performance years ago, when, if I remember correctly, Nick Cannon criticized him for only walking around the stage as he sang.

Another notable way he added to his stage presence was by interacting with his band and the audience. He didn’t act as if he was the entire performance, or that the world ends at the edge of the stage. To me, this constant interaction with his fans is just another way that he shows how much he appreciates and recognizes their support. It’s also obvious how much his fans appreciate what he does for them. While his current following is small compared to what it used to be, and to other big pop stars of the day (though not small in itself, he has nearly 373,000 followers on twitter) his fan base has members who are incredibly loyal. Besides reminding his old fans why they love him, he is also gaining new fans such as my fiancé (a 20 year old guy who now loves Aaron so much that he openly admits to being a fan of someone who’s main fan base is girls), who was won over by just one show. That’s how impressive Aaron’s performance was.

The music Aaron preformed was a mix of both his own music and his renditions of some of what’s currently being played on the radio. His songs included classics like “Aaron’s Party” and “That’s How I Beat Shaq” (complete with costume change) as well as his new songs such as “Where Do We Begin” and “Let Go”. One song he sang that was not his own was “Get Lucky”, the new release by Daft Punk. As one line in this song says, “like the legend of the phoenix”, Aaron really has become like the phoenix. He’s rising from the ashes of the temporary obscurity he had fallen into over the years, and shows no sign of stopping as he soars back into popularity. The joy of this on Aaron’s face is obvious, and you can tell from his-near constant smile that he really loves what he’s doing. In the few moments he’s not smiling you see that his deep connection to and enjoyment of the music. And of course, as seen below, when he stops moving long enough to not be blurry, he takes a great picture.

We here at AC blogs wish him all the best and can’t wait until his next concert near us!

Later we’ll discuss meeting Aaron, and what a cool experience that was!

Aaron Carter 9.27.13 Credit: aaroncerterblogs.com

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