Screaming girls, loud cheering, and a whole lot of dancing. This could only mean one thing – a Maroon 5 concert.
Taking to the stage on the 2nd day of the 2015 Formula One Singapore Grand Prix, Adam Levine and his band – currently on their Maroon 5 V tour – captivated thousands of spectators during their one hour performance at the Padang. The show was held towards the end of the night, shortly after the Formula One qualifying round.
This is the American pop-rock band’s second time performing in Singapore. Back in 2012, they too performed on the second night of the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix. I arrived half an hour before the concert started, and was in awe by the number of people that were standing around the open area before the Padang stage. What really surprised me was how the audience cheered and roared, even before the band took their place on stage.
Maroon 5 kick-started the concert with the hit ‘Animals’, taken from their 2014 album ‘V.’ Dressed in a white singlet, a tropical shirt and jeans, Adam Levine wowed the crowd the moment he sang the first few words of the song’s lyrics.
I enjoyed the concert, which comprised a set of ten songs, immensely. Most of the songs that were being sung were from their earlier album, ‘Songs About Jane’ – an iconic Maroon 5 album from 2002. Popular tunes like ‘She Will Be Loved’ and ‘Sunday Morning Rain’ got the crowd singing along and clapping their hands to the beat of the music.
Being a first-time attendee at a Maroon 5 concert, I fell in love with Levine’s charm. He made a conscious effort to connect with the audience by joking about Singapore’s humid weather, and introducing all his band members while making the crowd cheer them on. For the duration of two songs, ‘Payphone’ ‘and ‘This Love’, Levine signalled to the musicians to stop playing and join him in an embrace. He then encouraged the crowd to sing along with him and his band, with no instruments playing in the background.
As the band concluded the night after performing ‘Daylight’, the crowd chanted loudly for an encore. True enough, Levine and his guitarist, James Valentine, walked back to the centre of the stage. At that moment, you could see some of the audience who were just about to leave the vicinity, turn back around. The pair performed another popular classic of theirs – ‘She Will Be Loved’, before the other members joined them back on stage.
At this moment, the concert turned up another notch, and Levine took his shirt off, and strapped on a hot pink electric guitar. The band played two of their more recent songs, ‘Moves like Jagger’ and ‘Sugar’, before calling it a night.
All in all, I found my first Maroon 5 concert experience an unforgettable one. There are not many bands that are able to capture the hearts of both the young and the old, but Maroon 5 did that perfectly.
