Bruno Mars has created a show of unbridled joy, leaving his audience unable to do anything but smile and dance, cheering through every fancy foot manoeuvre, every saxophone solo and every high note.
The 32-year-old Hawaii-born singer transformed Qudos Bank Arena on Saturday March 17 (his first of five shows in Sydney) into a funky lit-up wonderland, where you could forget about the problems of the real world and focus fully on his finesse.
As soon as he hit the stage, he had the sold-out crowd out of their seats and dancing along to his first track of the night, ‘Finesse’, and he didn’t slow down from there, belting out tracks from his latest record 24K Magic like ‘That’s What I Like’ and ‘Versace On The Floor’, as well as his older hit songs like ‘Treasure’, ‘Marry You’ and ‘Just The Way You Are’.
“It’s up to you guys to set Night One off, can we do it Sydney?” he asked the crowd. There was no denying the energy from the crowd was through the roof, reflecting the unrestrained drive Mars was encapsulating in each song he sang.
There was never a dull moment, with costume changes skilfully masked with a solo from members of his polished eight-piece band, which included drums, keyboard, a horn section, guitar and bass. His backing band also happened to be his backup dancers, and they didn’t miss a single beat while playing in perfectly choreographed formation.
The only way this show could have improved was with a bit more crowd interaction, but he did prove to the audience that not only was he an amazing singer and dancer, he was also a bit of a comedian, picking up a fake phone in the middle of one song and chatting to his ‘baby’:
“Remember that time we vacationed over here? And I took you to Mount Druitt? You said you wanted to go to Paris or the Bahamas and I was like nah, fuck that we going to Mount Druitt.”
Catch Mars at his next few show dates at Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena, which will be running till March 24.
