Five For Fighting & Chantal Kreviazuk - The Keswick Theater – Glenside (A PopEntertainment.com Concert Review)

Five For Fighting - The Keswick Theater - Glenside PA - May 9, 2007 - Photo by Jim Rinaldi © 2007

Five For Fighting & Chantal Kreviazuk - The Keswick Theater - Glenside PA - May 9, 2007

John Ondrasik is not just a singer, he is an old-school storyteller, as demonstrated in the live setting. Whether sitting at the piano or standing alone with a guitar, Ondrasik had the audience rapt with his gorgeous melodies and warm, funny explanations of the songs' inspiration.

These could be tongue-in-cheek (a winking story of realizing he was getting old because he heard his song "Easy Tonight" played at a bar by a guitarist who told him he learned the song as a kid) or heartfelt (the beautiful story about the soldier and his father who inspired the song "Two Lights.")

Of course the stories wouldn't work if the music weren’t good, so Ondrasik kept the beautiful melodies coming. He did his new charity single "World" with warmth and skill. There was also a beautiful acoustic version of perhaps his most impressive song – "If God Made You" which was dedicated to his children – as well as a rollicking ode to his '65 Camaro.

One of the few semi-missteps was when Ondrasik decided to do a slightly flamboyant cover of one of the last songs in the world that you'd expect anyone to try to cover –Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover." Not that it is a bad song, it is just a song that is so particular to its author. More importantly, Ondrasik played the song way too broadly, going for a wink rather than the tongue-in-cheek seriousness of the original.

He covered that gaffe quickly, though, teasing a heckler who yelled out for "100 Years" by saying that Billy Joel told him to always play the hits last. Then he settled onto the bench and started tinkling the very recognizable intro to "Superman (It Ain't Easy)," his even bigger smash from 2001. Then he dove right into the sweetly yearning "100 Years," closing the show on a warm high.

Opening act Chantal Kreviazuk – who has never quite become the recording star she deserves to be, but has become an in-demand songwriter-for-hire for the likes of Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera and Pink – was very much FFF's equal, doing a charming act full of new songs ("Ghosts of You," "Wonderful"), oldie-almost-hits ("God Made Me") and some soundtrack faves ("Time" and "Feels Like Home.") Like Ondrasik, Kreviazuk is talented at stage banter and has a warm piano-based sound. It was an inspired pairing.

Jay S. Jacobs