For a day that started out with high winds and rain, the John Legend concert at Coachman Park was set to a cool, tranquil Florida evening. After rains dissipated and winds quieted down, fans began to make their way down to Coachman Park’s charming waterfront amidst a gorgeous sunset and surprisingly low humidity.
Known for hosting Clearwater’s Jazz Holiday and a myriad of other smaller festival’s, Coachman Park’s setup was small in comparison to their usual events. Outside of their seated options, a few people crowded the parks lawn with rented chairs and towels in order to get closer to the stage.
Read: John Legend delivers BBCB summit keynote, solo concert at Tampa Convention Center
Up first was promising R&B prospect Gallant, who we also saw at Okeechobee Music Festival. For fans hearing him for the first time, his Maxwell-esque high pitched vocals and energetic stage presence definitely turned some heads. Early on in the set he played his well known “Talking to Myself” and later capped the performance with the melodic “Weight in Gold.”
As the sun dipped below the sky and treated fans to the picturesque reds, yellows and purples of our Florida sunset, it was time for the man of the hour to do his part.
To a mostly seated crowd, John Legend slid behind the piano donning a black blazer, opening with several tracks off his Darkness and Light LP. Interestingly enough, he spent a good amount of time in front of the stage (not behind the piano) and let his 11-piece band do most of the heavy lifting.
John Legend is the quintessential piano man, with the swagger, skill and stage presence fit to play the part. When he wasn’t serenading the crowd with his impressive vocal ability, he was gliding across the stage dancing and greeting fans.
In between songs is when this was most evident, where he seductively (and repeatedly) lectured the crowd about the lessons of love.
“Sometimes in this game of love, you gotta talk a little shit,” he told the crowd, who spent a good portion of the show in a somber trance watching the Chicago native sing and talk on stage.
The singer/songwriter even got fans involved on stage. An excited and elated female fan standing in the front row was brought on stage during the song “Slow Dance” for a charming moment as Legend sang and danced with her.
For perhaps the most intimate moment of the night, Legend excused the band from the stage and returned to what made him famous, a sleek black grand piano perched in the back of the stage. From there, he brought the crowd to his feet with one of his original hits off the Get Lifted album, “Ordinary People.”
At times the crowd appeared a bit anemic, which comes with the territory of being a piano balladeer, and would have perhaps been better suited in Ruth Eckerd Hall’s indoor venue. But overall, the R&B crooner was able to sustain energy in spurts in front of a truly charmed crowd, making for a great night of music alongside Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway.
This article appears in May 11-18, 2017.
