Saturday, both middle-aged moms and excited pre-teens swooned in the Sadler Center’s Chesapeake room to the music of David Cook, winner of “American Idol” season seven. Cook ultimately beat co-finalist David Archuleta, winning 56 percent of the 100 million votes cast.
Cook’s stop at the College of William and Mary was a part of his “Declaration Tour,” which focused on smaller, more intimate venues at East Coast colleges. AMP jumped at the opportunity and booked the singer last fall.
Roughly 800 people attended, a high percentage of which were members of the general public. According to Will Sealy ’09, a member of the Alma Mater Productions music committee and the main organizer of the event, AMP decided to limit the number of non-student tickets to fill only fifty percent capacity. Although AMP could have gained more revenue by selling more public tickets, Sealy explained that they wanted to serve students first, justifying AMP’s decision to reserve a certain number of tickets for students even though not all were sold.
Before Cook took the stage, opener Ryan Star warmed up the crowd with mainstream rock tunes, tight black pants and plenty of attitude.
Star, another alumnus of reality television, is best known for his stint on the show “Rock Star: Supernova.” His set consisted of music similar to that of Cook and flirtatious banter with audience members.“I’d like to study here,” Star said to the students in the crowd. “What do you guys study?”
One girl responded “English” to which Star replied with a smirk, “You don’t know English? What’d you get on your SATs?”
Similar to the stage theatrics of Creed’s Scott Stapp, Star occasionally struck Messiah-like poses throughout the set.
Star’s set ranged from harder tracks, like “Brand New Day” with vocals reminiscent of Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave, to more adult-contemporary fare with the song “Last Train Home,” which was featured on the “P.S. I Love You” soundtrack. His better numbers included “Psycho Suicidal Girls,” an angry tune about an ex-fling, and “Right Now,” which was snappy, and anthemic. He closed the night with an unexpected, grungy cover of the Katy Perry song, “Hot and Cold.”
After Star exited the stage, roadies and members of AMP worked quickly to change the music equipment, while the teenage girls and their parents trembled in excitement and the winners of AMP’s promotional T-shirt contest were announced.
The lucky designers of these homemade David Cook T-shirts were given the opportunity to meet with Cook after the show. Screams filled the air as the names were announced. The majority of the winners were not students at the College; three students who won the chance to meet Cook were Matt Schofield ’12, Caitlin Shoemaker ’12 and Michelle Bousquet ’12.
Schofield said he encouraged his friends to enter the T-shirt contest for a chance to talk to Cook and convince him to give up Carrie Underwood’s phone number. Shoemaker said they were “… on pins and needles, waiting for [their] names to be called.”
After AMP announced the winners, Shoemaker said the students were ecstatic.
“A loud eruption came from Matt in the middle of the floor where we were located,” she said. “I immediately texted my mom and sister, who both responded with excitement and a bit of envy.”
The student’s winning T-shirts were inspired by Cook’s first single “Time of my Life” and incorporated the College’s logo on the back.
After the announcement, Cook finally took the stage, opening with a cover of Collective Soul’s “The World I Know,” which he performed on the “American Idol” finale.
Throughout the show he took advantage of his heartthrob status, shamelessly flirting with his female fans.
“It’s good to see some new faces … and some old ones, too,” he said, smiling at the devoted Cook enthusiasts who had followed him on tour and had positioned themselves in the center of the front row.
Cook threw out handfuls of guitar picks to the audience, which elicited many squealing reactions.
Between songs he relayed anecdotes, such as his earlier exploration of campus. He mentioned specifically his difficulty avoiding puddles while playing a game of catch on the Sunken Gardens, then jokingly
suggested that the College should look out for an invoice for one pair of ruined shoes.
Segueing into the angrier tune, “Lie,” Cook explained how unromantic the song was while simultaneously trying to sell T-shirts.
“How many couples in the crowd tonight?” he said. “Well, you guys should hang by the merch table, ‘cause this song is not for you.”
He assumed a casual, joking tone on stage. “We had an election not too long ago … Who did you guys vote for?” Cook asked. A few excited crowd members, potentially confusing the presidential election with the past season of “American Idol,” yelled that they voted for Cook. He thanked them for their vote, and then explained that he was returning to the “American Idol” tradition of audience decision-making.
“We’re going to leave it to democracy,” he said, and gave the crowd two options for his next song: “Little Lies” or “Hot for Teacher.” By round of applause, “Hot for Teacher” won by a wide margin. Cook’s drummer then immediately started in on the distinctive Van Halen drum solo.
The crowd’s enhusiasm intensified when Cook announced that he had two new singles coming out that month and that he just shot the music video for “Come Back to Me.”
“I got to do a little acting for it, which [was] nice.” Cook then delved into the narrative lyrics of a song, fitting to some bad music-video acting.
One high point during the show was the song “Bar-ba-Sol” which started out sounding like a monotonous Nickelback song, but gained a punchier melody as it continued. However, the tune “Declaration” fell flat as an attempt to serve up hackneyed inspiration.
Cook wrapped up the concert on a more somber note, announcing that he was going to take off the next couple of shows on the tour, but promised to do his best to reschedule. He sounded very regretful stating, “from [the age of] 15 to now, I have only canceled one show so far. So this will be our last song for four days …” and then led into his well-known single, “Light On.” Voices of the crowd led the last chorus of the song, ending the concert with a more intimate feel.
The excitement continued on after the show as the winners of the T-shirt contest waited anxiously for their meet-and-greet while Ryan Star mingled with fans by the merchandise table. On the first floor of the Sadler Center, two members of Ryan Star’s band, Dan Tirer and Artie Fleischmann, sold CDs to anyone they could find.
When asked how the show went, they emphatically stated, “swimmingly” and that they were excited to head out to the next show. Fleischmann then offered to share what kind of underwear he was wearing, which prompted the question from a nearby student, “Boxers or briefs?” He laughed and replied “nope,” indicating with his hands that he was not wearing any underwear.
Meanwhile, Shoemaker, Schofield and Bousquet waited eagerly after the show for their meet-and-greet with Cook. Shoemaker said that Schofield, “made a valiant effort” to get Underwood’s number, but Cook declined. However, Cook was friendly and charming to his fans.
“We chatted for a second with his band members and were amused by David’s ease and humor in posing for pictures,” Shoemaker said. “We got our photo and an autograph, which I promptly hung in my dorm room: I was so pumped to finally meet an ‘Idol’.”
