White Oak Music Hall was filled to the brim for the highly anticipated Jesse McCartney New Stage Tour. Fans were beaming with excitement especially after having to reschedule the tour due to covid health concerns. New stage Tour is a celebration of Jesse’s new album New Stage released in 2021.
The New Stage Tour opened up with Casey Baer and Jamie Miller. Immediately after the opening performances, the stage was transformed, casted in blue light, with Jesse McCartney’s name emblazoned in the background. A singular red microphone sat front and center on top of a three step riser with drums and guitar on the opposite sides.
The way Jesse came on stage gave me literal goosebumps. The stage floor began to pulsate red as a cloud of white fog began to encompass the stage. Jesse opened up his performance with the first track from his New Stage album “Discovering You”. The band began to play the intro as the pulsating lights became brighter and faster then, all of a sudden, the lights completely turned off and Jesse appeared on stage and began to sing while doing some mic stand choreography reminiscent of early 2000’s choreography. The build up was completely breathtaking.
Jesse’s performance of Bleeding Love was very emotional. Jesse took a moment to explain the significance of this performance to him. “If it is your first time coming to my show then this might be news to you. If you’ve been coming to my show for a while then you’ve probably heard this. I wrote this song around maybe 2007/ 2008 with the intention of putting it on my third album, the Departure album, but it was a classic tale of a record company hating a song and I loved it. They basically said “sorry you can’t put it on the album.” I was pretty upset but they won the battle. We released Leavin’ so it ended up being okay but this song was sort of eating away at me that no one was recording it. Ryan Tedder, who I wrote it with, called me and he said “Listen I have an artist over in London who was on the X-Factor and I think she will be really good at singing this song.” And I was so excited that for the first time, someone was going to record a song that I wrote, and she made it the biggest song of the decade, her name is Leona Lewis, and this is Bleeding Love.” Something about Jesse singing this song alone as he accompanied himself on piano was sort of liberating. You could just tell how much he loved this song and how much he loved to finally be able to perform it. Every single person knew this song and sang every single word. It really is one of the most famous songs of all time and I’m glad Jesse is finally free to perform it.
Jesse went on to perform multiple hits including Leavin’, Beautiful Soul, Right Where You Want Me, and countless others. I think his best performance was Party For Two. He asked the audience if one of them wanted to join him on stage. “I have a really fun song I want to play for you guys. This is a song I wrote originally for my engagement back in 2019. But anyways she’s actually here tonight and she gave me permission to play this song for one of you guys” Of course everyone and I mean EVERYONE swooned over this opportunity. Fans were squealing and raising their hands for the opportunity as he picked one lucky fan that made a poster for him. He got her on stage and sat her down on a stool and started singing on the opposite side of the stage and danced his way to her and began to sing in her ear as she fanned herself! I am sure this was literally a dream come true for her as she sang every word and mimicked every movement he made. The vibe of this performance was very intoxicating!
Jesse ended his concert with his iconinc “The Masked Singer” performance cover Kiss From A Rose by Seal. Jesse left the stage the same way he entered, a fog overtook the stage as the lights blacked out and he disappeared into the mist. Jesse gave us such an amazing experience. Jesse’s vocals are incredible. It was like his voice never aged. I would even go as far to say that the albums do not do him justice. He sounded so amazing live the entire time and his showmanship was spectacular as well. Being a long time fan, this was everything I ever dreamed of as a kid that really loved Jesse McCartney. Give his new album New Stage a listen if you haven’t done so already.
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