Michael Buble vows to deliver mind-blowing arena spectacle
Michael Bublé is spending late afternoon on Monday throwing a football in a hallway at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., while singing “Bring It on Home to Me.”
It’s just before soundcheck and “I don’t want to sound like a dog howling when I got on stage,” he says in a phone interview.
At the other end of the ball are his sons Noah and Elias, who are accompanying him on the Higher Tour while his wife is home with their daughters Vida, 4, and Cielo, who just came into the world on Aug. 19.
“I’m trying to give my wife a little break,” says the 46-year Canadian crooner, “so I took my boys on tour with me — just me, no nannies. Just three boys going on the road. They are 9 and 6, so you can imagine it’s chaos ... CHA-OS.
“They’re great kids,” he adds, with a laugh.
Buble, who performs at PPG Paints Arena on Thursday, is saving just enough energy to get on stage for what he promises is an absolutely amazing show. He’s asks me if I’m coming and I say I am.
“You’re gonna lose your mind, Scott,” says Buble, who doubles as a comedian on stage. “You’re gonna know 30 seconds in, before you even see me, that this is the greatest show I’ve ever given. Trust me, you’ll know.
“I know we have to do interviews. I know that’s how we sell tickets. This show is so good that the tickets will sell. It’s just a matter of how long it takes for the word of mouth to get around.”
It’s “a fantastic, gigantic spectacle,” he declares, dreamed up during the pandemic shutdown.
“It’s an arena show, yet, at the same time I think I have the opportunity to keep the damn thing feeling like it’s really intimate. But if I’m asking you to pay good money to come into a hockey arena, then I better damn well take you away and transport you to another time and place.
“You’ll get it, man. You’ll understand it. Musically, this is better than it’s ever been. Sonically, it’s better than it’s ever been. The production’s bigger than it’s ever
been. I’m probably gonna have to borrow some of your money at some point, but it’s worth it.”
Buble, who has been specializing in the Great American Songbook since debuting in 2001, is on tour with “Higher,” his 11th album and his first since 2018’s “Love.” While it was largely produced by Greg Wells and Bob Rock, Sir Paul McCartney turned up to produce his own song, “My Valentine,” and Willie Nelson makes a special appearance for a charming duet on his classic “Crazy.”
“The highlight for me,” Buble says, “was surrounding myself with visionaries, with great artists who have as much passion and love for the music as I do. But more than that, I felt like I let go. Instead of me micromanaging, like I love to do, I had a lot of fun in letting go and allowing people like Greg Wells and Bob Rock and Sir Paul McCartney and Willie Nelson and Ryan Tedder to do their thing.
“And it was interesting,” he says, “because it all started with a conversation that
hurt my feelings. I had a friend of mine say, ‘You know, Mike, you make these great records, but after all these years, you have such a unique sense of style that — you know what I mean — they’re definitely sounding like Michael Bublé records.’ And I said, ‘Well, what? You don’t like Michael Bublé records?’ He said, ‘No, I just think that if you let other people in a little bit more, you might get a fresh take. You may give your audience a fresh take.’ I thought about that a lot. It really had an impact on me.”
What he didn’t expect is that, when he chose to let go, it would feel like a fresh take for him as well.
“I didn’t expect that as a listener that I would get to hear myself in a different way. And it was really refreshing for me because I felt like I hadn’t tried to be something I’m not. I didn’t reek of the desperation of an artist trying to be cooler or different than he is. By letting go a little bit, these people took my work in a new direction and it was fresh for me.”
One of the standouts on the record, and of the concerts, is that cover of Sam Cooke’s “Bring it on Home to Me,” delivered as a gospel hymn crossed with a New Orleans parade march.
“People like Sam Cooke and Donny Hathaway were my heroes, musically,” Buble says. “A lot of that R&B music and soul music is what fills me up, gives me inspiration. My first singing coach was one of the original Platters and at 14 years old he would bring me all of these artists and I was fascinated by them. I was fascinated by the feeling, by the groove, by how gorgeous those choral arrangements were and just how damn good it felt.”
He’d tried to take on “Bring It on Home to Me” in the past, he says, but it came out sounding like “a bad knockoff.”
“So, I came home one night and I asked my wife if she wouldn’t mind taking the kids out so I could have the house, and I sat at the piano, and I had some whiskey and I started playing it. And I’m not a great player, so I made mistakes — and then those mistakes started to open up the song for me, and I knew I’d figured it out, I’d unlocked it.
“So, I called Bob Rock on FaceTime and I started singing it to him, and I said, ‘Bob, this is what it is. It isn’t Sam Cooke’s ‘Bring It on Home,’ this is Donny Hathaway’s ‘Put Your Hand in the Hand.’ And I knew instantly, instantly. And I’ll tell you this, I’ve recorded hundreds — I don’t know how many songs I’ve recorded in 25 years — but this is the greatest song I’ve ever recorded, in my own personal belief. It’s the closest I’ve ever come to knocking out perfection. It’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever been a part of.”
Not surprisingly, in the making of the record, Buble was not able to connect with Bob Dylan, who is represented on “Higher” with a cover of “Make You Feel My Love.”
When I joke that Dylan is a threat to him as a crooner of standards, Buble says, “You know what, I talk about it the same way: If you build a furniture store on a street, you get a few people that will come and go shopping. But if four or five furniture stores are built on that street, then it will breathe life into the whole damn genre. I will take as many people as possible keeping the greatest gift America ever gave to the arts alive. And when you talk about maybe the greatest writer who ever lived, and one of the deepest thinkers, taking his shot on interpretations, I don’t think there’s anything but greatness that comes with that, and with the longevity of this incredible music. Come one, come all.”
With that, his publicist comes on the line and Buble has to run to soundcheck. Until I mention one of his other passions, fantasy football. Now, he’s excited and wants to keep talking, offering tips and marveling at the keeper team it’s taken him years to rebuild.
“How can I send this to you?” he says. “Here, I’ll just read it: Kyler Murray, Austin Ekeler, Dalvin Cook, Davante Adams, Travis Kelce, Alvin Kamara ...”
OK, mind blown.