Audience was right there waiting and Marx sang, spoke and joked
At 7.30 p.m. on Sunday, June 26, most guests at the Richard Marx Live in Sri Lanka show were still milling around the entrance. There was a collective moment of surprise when the multi-platinum record holder and Grammy winner strolled on to the stage at 7.30 p.m. on the dot. An international performer on time (almost)- at the Stein Studio in Ratmalana no less.
Marx is an American adult contemporary and pop/rock singer, songwriter, musician and record producer who has sold over 30 million records. He had a stream of hits over the 80s and the 90s including “Right Here Waiting”, “Endless Summer Nights”, “Now and Forever” and “Hazard”, all of which he performed during the show. Marx is the first solo artist to have his first seven singles hit the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart; he also penned and produced hit singles for other performers including “This I promise You” for NSYNC and “Dance With My Father” for Luther Vandross.
On Sunday, Marx was the most charming of hosts; he sang, he spoke, he tried out a few Sinhala words (“kohomada?” to thundering approval), he offered to spend the evening with us (feigning shock when this was met with a few loaded snickers from the audience). This was the most entertained a Lankan audience had been by a performer’s quips in a long time; Marx joked about meeting a fan at BIA who enquired if his murder mystery song Hazard was based on real life events, about the hysteria that members of NSYNC would be met with when he was recording a song with them (“They couldn’t walk through a front entrance because there would be hundreds of screaming girls,” he shared. “I, of course, had no trouble.”), his age, his 80s hairstyle…few things escaped the singer’s warm sense of humour.
The singer performed solo during a 90 minute set, alternating between the guitar and piano. Marx chose a set list that contained old hits interspersed with more recent ones, often sharing an anecdote connected with the song before inviting the audience to sing along with him.
With the intuition and precision of a well-honed performer who knows exactly what makes his audience tick, the singer ended the evening with perhaps the song he is most well known for-a dreamy, poignant “Right Here Waiting”, uplifted by almost a thousand voices singing along.
Richard Marx Live in Sri Lanka: Legends in Concert was presented by YES101 and Legends 966 with Fairway Holdings.