Like Caramel and Champagne - Leon Bridges Melts and Pops

teresahaydon
Oct 6, 2016
3 min read

Artist: Leon Bridges

Date: October 1, 2016

Venue: Cleveland Masonic Auditorium

City: Cleveland

Price: $35.00 USD

Seats: Balcony – Stage Left

Genre: Gospel/Soul

Overview:

Listen to Leon. Trust me. If you haven’t heard him sing, check out the following songs on YouTube: Smooth Sailing, Coming Home & The River.

Leon is a 50s and 60s style soul singer from Fort Worth, Texas who got his start playing open mike nights while working as a dishwasher. His music and style has been compared to Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. His throwback clothing style perfectly reflect his vintage soul appeal with his slim brown suits, fedoras, butterfly collars and shiny shoes. His voice is smooth and warm and zesty - like caramel melting and champagne popping.

Vibe:

This audience was one of my favourites. When the opening act gets a standing ovation you know you have a great, welcoming crowd. We met a fabulous nurse from Cleveland who was sitting next to us and we had a huge chat about the differences in living in Canada compared to the US. She was a 4-year breast cancer survivor and wonderful lady – at the end of the show we gave her a big hug….we’ve never hugged anyone at a show before! Funny enough, we also shared a cab with a lovely Canadian couple from Beamsville back to the hotel, who we just happened to meet outside the venue.

Venue:

We’ve attended a number of shows in Cleveland, it is a great rock n’ roll town, but this was our first at the Cleveland Masonic Temple.

The venue was a huge, beautiful auditorium with excellent acoustics. It is the type of place where every seat is a good seat – and that is rarer than you would think.

The room was cool and comfortable and we had a great sight line to Leon with lots of room to dance!

The ushers are helpful in getting you seated as the sections were a little wacky. Overall, I would go back to this hall as it was beautiful and welcoming.

Our seats were in a little nook I called the Crow's Nest. See below. I loved the elevation, sight line and space that I had.

Highlights:

The whole setlist was damn near perfect. Ron and I had a great seats where we could get up and dance without blocking anyone’s view – fantastic!

Leon’s dancing was groovily hilarious. He bounds and bops and prances around with a 60s flair that we haven’t seen before – he’s quite the performer. Check out his fancy feet here.

His backup band and backup singer, Brittni Jessie is superbly talented. Brittni has the voice of a rare and delicate angel – a perfect complement to Leon’s soul singing.

I loved the stripped down version of The River to finish the main set, but, Lisa Sawyer, was my favorite tune. It is beautiful story about his mother and her family. Another great one was Twistin’ & Groovin’.

PS – If you’re staying in Cleveland, let me recommend the Drury Hotel in downtown Cleveland. It is a beautifully renovated old bank with magnificent architecture, grand artwork and impressive lake and downtown views. Right outside you’ll find a statue of Abe Lincoln and lovely fountain. It has a 5pm kick back with hot dogs, nachos, chili, salad and free drinks – you really can’t ask for more.

Set list:

Smooth Sailin'

Out Of Line

Whole Lotta Woman -(Sam Cooke cover)

Pull Away

The Juice

Better Man

Brown Skin Girl

Golden Room

Lonely Road

Lisa Sawyer

Texas Sun