Concert review: Il Divo still has it, despite an awkward first half

SINGAPORE — Watching Il Divo’s concert on Monday was like watching a sports match. In the first half, the quartet bantered stiltedly, moved awkwardly and had negative chemistry. During the half-time break, we imagine they might have gotten a pep talk from a highly effective coach because when they came back out, they were a different team: They not only sounded and interacted better; they also looked better.

The three-hour concert, held at The Star Theatre, was the first stop in the Asian leg of Il Divo’s Amor & Pasion World Tour and featured songs from the group’s latest album of the same name. The classical-pop band consisting tenors David Miller and Urs Buhler, baritone Carlos Marin and pop singer Sebastien Izambard last performed in Singapore two years ago.

With a show named Amor & Pasion (Spanish for love and passion), it was a no-brainer that the boys would play up their Latin lover shtick to the point of parody. After all, Marin, who is Spanish and single, has been overdoing that for years and, even if he were tired of it, the audience didn’t seem to be.

After the quartet loosened up in the second half, they trotted out pickup lines such as “I had no idea that the angels could fly so low” and “If being sexy were a crime, you’d spend your life in prison”, accompanied by sniggering.

The concert was also touted as the first time Il Divo would be dancing as well as singing on stage. In our opinion, they should stick to singing. That’s not to say their tangos and hip thrusts were badly executed — just that their songs worked best when it was simply the four of them sitting on stools or standing together, enabling their soaring vocals to take centre stage.

While we realise that the band was trying to make the show different and interesting, it would still have worked better without the cluttered stage, the Latin dancers and the KTV-quality video montages. The audience showed more appreciation for pared-down numbers such as Hallelujah, Caruso and Don’t Cry For Me Argentina.

Yes, vocally, the four guys in Armani have still got it and there is no reason for them to draw attention away from their instruments.