GenQ Music

Ryan Tedder, One Republic

How professional is that? Maroon 5 cancel their New Zealand leg of their tour due to an unavoidable scheduling clash, but One Republic carry on. Moving their performance from the Vector Arena in Auckland to a more intimate setting at The Powerstation allowed the screaming girly fans to position themselves much closer. It appears that going from support band to headline the night has many advantages

So on a clear Sunday night in Auckland, we approach the entrance to the venue (without a line might I add) realising it’s some sort of eighties club pumping out daggy hits most nights of the week. The sticky state of the dance floor also proved my theory. Now the new support act for the support-act-cum-headliner act had already begun, not sounding too bad at all. It wasn’t until their final song that I recognised who they were (also because the lead singer mentioned their name). Goodnight Nurse were supporting One Republic! What a fantastic start to the night (if only I had have worked it out sooner).

After some crazy people, who were bopping away during the interval (despite the lack of music), were told to leave, One Republic came on stage to overly enthusiastic teenage girl screams. I had no idea that these guys had such an eclectic arrange of fans. There were the white 20-something male unfairly up the front (all over 6 feet tall by my calculations), the dreadlocked punky rockers drinking and swaying all over the place at the back and the younger, blonder variety packed in tight along the balcony or attempting to peer over the tall boys’ heads on the dance floor. This latter group were the ones that made me feel I was at a Backstreet Boys concert. Never before had I seen such a vast array of music lovers for one band.

It was easy to tell why the girls were piercing my ear drums and it wasn’t necessarily for the music (although I’m sure the Timbaland version of Apologize helped). Ryan Tedder, lead singer, pianist and guitar, isn’t exactly ugly. And any young man that can play a number of instruments that include having a wonderfully diverse and colourful voice isn’t exactly going to scare women away either. C’est la vie.

On with the review. Despite an unforgiving microphone that wanted to fall off its stand  (at one point the sound guy had to kneel behind the piano as Ryan played, holding the mic upright), the boys did great on their own. Ryan pulled out jokes about performing in another country (apparently New Zealand is all the best bits of what they love in the U.S, rolled into one!) and they bantered amongst themselves. The songs in between were interspersed with long amazing interludes of piano and cello solos.

Obviously Apologize and Stop and Stare were the most popular hits of the night, and the crowd sung along with Ryan, which added to the atmosphere.  With four guitars going at once and the drums, Sleep was another stand out of the night, a bonus song not on the album. Requested near the end was All We Are and was the last song of the night.

The overall impression one might gather from seeing One Republic perform live is that this group have much more to offer than you might think. Ryan’s vocals are simply amazing, he has such impeccable control and range. And although his voice is distinctive like all good lead singers, you can still find variety in the songs they play.

Their debut album, Dreaming out Loud is in stores now and contains the hits ‘apologize’ and ‘stop and stare’, as well as other undiscovered jewels. And don’t worry if you missed them this time around, Ryan has promised that they will be back sometime soon.

Stop and Stare - One Republic

Tags: One Republic