Atlanta Journal Constitution: Clay "highly entertaining"

Another concert, another great review. Clay returned to Atlanta last night, almost 5 years after he auditioned for American Idol in that same city, for what the Atlanta Journal Constitution is calling a "highly entertaining" concert.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution's American Idol blog has the full version of this review. They also have some great photos from last night's photo at Access Atlanta - Clay Aiken at Chastain.

Sure, the dorky season two runner up still seems to appeal to a certain type of middle-aged woman, but the man truly has incredible pipes and sounded great. Clay doesn’t take himself too seriously, joking numerous times about the heat and being quite gabby throughout the concert. “What’s with the humidity?” he said early on. “They didn’t give us fans! The only breeze are the bugs flying by our faces. One got stuck to me.” A fan handed him a freeze pop. He stuck it on his forehead, then noticed while singing “When I See You Smile” that the pop was sugar free. “You think I’m getting fat?” he cracked.

Over two-plus hours, he sang 13 songs in full (mostly covers and only one cut from his first CD) and two extensive medleys. His backup singers each got to sing a song, too.

The Claymates brought “Clay”-faced fans and one even set a life-sized cardboard version of Clay on an empty seat. After he did “Measure of a Man,” he spied a poster that said, “I gave up a car to see you.” He asked the teen-ager what the deal was and she said, yes, her mom gave her a choice: a car or tickets to Clay. “Your mom,” he joked, “gypped you!”

He then changed the lyrics to Nilsson’s “Without You” to include the line “I can’t live, if living is without a car/I can’t live/ I can’t get anywhere!”

He then set up a joke alluding to rumor’s he’s gay, a bit he’s been doing all summer. “Atlanta is the city where it all kind of started for me because I auditioned here. So this is a special night for me… I want to talk to you for just a minute about something serious. I know you’ve read this in the papers, probably seen stories in the tabloids or whatnot. Some radio shock jocks talk about it. Some of you have even thought this about me… Atlanta. I.. am… not cool.”

Once the Celine Dion cover was over, he waved and left, dispensing with the cliched encore. The lights went up at about 10:35 a.m., 25 minutes before Chastain shuts the sound off. Jill said she heard that Clay will shake hands and meet with every Claymate after the concert. We went home. Overall, he was highly entertaining, even in the muggy heat. But I’m never going to be a Claymate. Sorry.