A long line awaited singer-songwriter Jake Scott outside Royale for the Boston stop of his “Lavender Tour” on Nov. 4.
The opening act and the youngest winner of “The Voice” Brynn Cartelli came on the stage with her guitar and told her story to the audience through her gentle music. Her songs were rather calm, but her voice gave them extra strength. ROSIE performed next, and she finished the warm-up with “Next Life,” bringing up the spirit of the room.
About 20 minutes later, strips of bright flashing red light broke the darkness on stage. The piano and the guitar struck notes at the same time — the loudest moment of the concert so far. My heart was shaken by it in a literal sense. Immediately after, our star of the night, Jake Scott, jumped out from the left side stage curtain, belting lyrics from his song “CWJBHN”: “You said your favorite kinda weather is a rainy day.”
The name of the song may seem chaotic at the first glance, but it is easy to figure out that it is the abbreviation of a phrase in the chorus — “can we just be happy now” — after listening for a while.
Even though the phrase is used for a romantic relationship in the song, I found it almost like a calling for the audience of that night. It may be that or just the collective excitement to see the one we had all waited for two hours to see, but the crowd was much more active than before. I looked back to see that rows of people had filed in after me. The room was full like a bottle of water — only the part near the very end was empty.
The next song Scott sang was “Texas Girl.” When the phrase “Texas girl” slipped from his mouth, the crowd collectively screamed out. This is how someone should know a good song is coming.
While Scott was traveling across the stage and singing “Cause there’s something ‘bout a Texas girl,” audience members were either shouting or singing along with him. If anyone came into the room at that moment, they may question where the girl band that was belting the lyric out with so much emotion was hiding.
In the middle of “Like This,” Scott jumped off the stage into the crowd, singing “no one ever got me high like this, set me on fire like this.” The crowd — especially the audience members standing close to the stage — was excited as ever before.
After he jumped back on stage right before he went on to the next song, Scott announced the news about his debut album, also called “Lavender.”
When it came to the thirteenth song of the night, “We Haven’t Looked at Our Phones,” I could barely keep myself standing. As a casual listener, it was hard for me to tell the difference between most of the songs. He sang a lot of love songs that started off slow, sped up at the chorus, then came to another phase of slow emotional music.
At first, the drum beats and the husky voice of Scott were exciting. But as someone who wasn’t a die-hard fan, after listening to approximately the same thing for the whole night, it was hard to not want to leave.
The performance ended a bit before ten. As I walked out of the building with relief in my heart, I could not help but be amazed by the fact someone could write and perform this many love songs. While I appreciate Scott’s talent as a singer-songwriter, I hope he will find inspiration elsewhere for his future releases.
