I am nervous about my first daughter being born, but excited. Family is always No.1
Michael Bublé has a new-found love for performing after his son’s brush with death
MICHAEL Bublé reclines in a soft brown leather chair and clasps his hands together as he ponders a question. He is thinner than previous incarnations and the jacket of his teal blue suit hangs loosely around his trim shoulders.
His hair is tousled and not slicked back and he is brandishing a pair of multi-coloured socks that would give Canadian President Justin Trudeau a run for his money.
It’s fair to say that the one-time party boy has grown up and who could blame him?
Bublé’s son, Noah, was diagnosed with cancer in November 2016. The now four-year-old was initially misdiagnosed with the mumps before doctors discovered a lump in his stomach.
The dad of two cancelled a string of dates and retreated from the spotlight turning to doctors in the hope of restoring his son’s health as he went through ‘every parent’s nightmare’.
Then Noah’s mother and Bublé’s wife, Luisana Lopilato, confirmed last year that their son’s treatment was proving successful and that the ‘worst is over’.
But the scars of the traumatic event live long in his memory. Tonight the Canadian crooner will play to a packed house at Croke Park for the first time in five years, with a new found respect for life and his craft. But before kicking of his comeback at GAA headquarters he has a message of thanks to his legions of Irish fans.
‘It meant a lot to me that this would be where I would make the comeback’, he says pointing at the hallowed turf.
‘I found that things got so very clear for me. It (Noah’s illness) allowed me in my life to truly, maybe for the first time as an artist and as a human being, to really enjoy the moment. To live with grace and be grateful.
‘Today is an example. I hope that I have integrity when it comes to my work and how I do it. Over 70,000 people will have paid their hard-earned cash to come and see me play and I want to give them value. That is still a part of running any business.
‘But I truly believe that I have no business knowing what you think about me. It is not my business any more. My business is to be a happy person and to take the best parts out of life and to love what I do and love the moment. And to not let the moments to get the best of me. To thrive.
‘Thank God. This is the first time I have had the chance to speak like this on a stage this large or ever answer these questions. Instead of talking about the pain and negativity I would much rather take the opportunity to really say thank you. To thank all of this people who sent their prayers and well wishes.
‘We are not the only family that has gone through something like this and there are many families and we were just more than grateful for that love that we got. It kept us going many days. It kept us alive.
‘I know to them they were strangers. To those from Ireland and from my country it just meant more than people will ever know.
‘I say that on behalf of my wife – thank you.’
The singer pauses and takes a sip from his glass of water. His eyes have teared up just speaking about this nightmare time. But the experience has changed him. He had been in the UK working when Luisana took Noah for an ultrasound in South America to see if he had mumps.
What followed was a terrifying liver cancer diagnosis, with terrified Luisana rushing their eldest to the US before she’d even been able to get hold of her husband.
But positivity is what governs his life now and the mention of the couple’s third child, a daughter due this summer, brings him out of those dark days spent around a hospital bed and back in the room.
‘My first daughter – that I am nervous about’, he says flashing a smile. ‘I am so excited about that and I can’t wait. It is going to be a blast. I just can’t wait to celebrate and we are so excited.
‘But this is all about Croke Park. I care, and I have a great passion for what I do. But again I live with a perspective that I just didn’t have before and it allows me to have no fear.
‘I have been to Hell and Croke Park isn’t hell, it is Heaven so I can’t wait. For me it is pure bliss, there is no fear and what can go wrong?
‘I am going to go back to doing what I was made to do. I am going to come back to a world that needs love and romance and laughter more than it has in a long time.
‘I am going to be a conduit for that I hope. Not that I can fix these things but if I can be like a little Batman band aid and be part of the healing process then great.’
The Grammy award winning singer hasn’t performed in Dublin since selling out four successive nights in the former O2 area in 2013. But he is keeping tight-lipped about the details of the two-and-ahalf-hour show insisting that above anything else it will be ‘very real and authentic’.
‘I have surprises for the fans and for myself’, he says. ‘Because I have tried to not let the enormity of the event get to me. I have to, to get to this place by enjoying myself and really having fun.
‘The show will be organic and loose and not be slick and tight and the same show every night. I have no idea what is going to happen.
‘I have loose ideas of how I would like things to go. I have ideas on how I would like to introduce a moment or a segway from one song to another.
‘But honestly it could all go t**s up for me I just don’t know. There are moments in this show that I am trying to build right now and I don’t know how they will go.
‘This is the first time I saw the stage and I looked out the window and went ‘‘s**t that’s not going to work’’. But it is going to be fun.
‘But really, what can go wrong? Nothing. Some of my musicians were a little nervous in rehearsal last week and I told them, the mistake will be what makes it special.
‘Forget about perfection. Let the audience know that it is authentic and when you make mistakes they will know that the performance is special and theirs.
‘I can’t express to you how excited I am to be back in the arms of the ones that I love. This is my happiest place.’
Since he first started coming to Ireland over a decade ago, the singer has built up quite the fanbase. And while there are a few tickets still available for tonight’s show, the gig is all but sold out.
‘You can’t prepare for this show. I don’t prepare. Because I knowing that in the scheme of everything, the health of my children is No.l. The relationship I have with my family and wife and my faith, all of it is easily No.1. And all of this, when I look out at this incredible arena and I see all of those seats and what will be this incredible atmosphere it is so different than I used to see it.
‘That’s the truth. Now I see it as this beautiful wonderful bonus. It is the cherry on top of a life that is fulfilled and big and great. It allows me not to have this moment overpower me. It allows me to be truly set and settled and to understand that I have integrity what I do. But who I am and what I do, there is a clear line between them.’
Bublé jetted into Dublin on Thursday night and has been keeping a low profile opting to stay in the hotel rather than paint the
town read. He has been writing new material in Ireland but has also revealed that he has just finished his eighth studio album which he will release later this year. And he is adamant that this is his most honest and heartfelt creation in his entire career as he has drawn on his family’s cancer battle for inspiration.
‘Writing the album did, many times, (help me deal with the struggles with his son’s health). Perspective is an incredible thing and it costs a lot but it allowed me to rekindle a love for music.
‘I got very burnt-out before all of these things happened. When the last record was coming out I wasn’t enjoying myself as much.
‘It was though the fault of no one else. It was my own narcissism and my false self and the ego part of what we do, I let them get to me.
‘I started to care too much about what other people thought of me. Was my career going the way I wanted it to? Was it on the upswing? Am I going to go on a downward trajectory like every artist does?
‘I was worried and that worry didn’t allow me to enjoy myself. Because I was much too worried about the next thing to live in the now.
‘The very first moment it was, snap, and that snap was perspective and in that one moment the clarity was so great. It was efficient and I remember sitting in the hospital room and thinking what? I was worried about any of that shit? I was worried about the number of records I had sold or what some a ****** e said about me?
‘In one second it got so clear. And that clarity gave me the opportunity to find love again. To find a joy that I had as a kid that I had when I first started out at 26 years of age.
‘I then went back into the studio and I found that joy again. I can talk to you all day about that purity and sense of humanity but when you hear the record I won’t have to say a word.
‘I am not selling anything because the truth is I put the music down and when you hear it you are going to s***. It is the greatest record I have ever made and scratch that from what you have heard every artist in the world say. You will know, I won’t have to say.’
When the record is released Michael confirmed he will return to Dublin to play a series of smaller gigs. He will also get to perform in London next week with another of his Irish heroes, Van the Man.
‘I play Hyde Park next week and Van Morrison is on the bill. I love Van deeply and I love how he writes and emotes, and everything about him I love.
‘Getting to meet him and getting to know him and work with him... I got to be part of inducting him into the writers’ hall of fame.
‘And when he made his speech and at the end of it he said something like get out there and hustle you songwriters. It is a beautiful thing.’
If I can be like a little Batman band aid and be part of the healing process