Who the hell is Charlie Puth? That’s the question every person asked when told the concert I would be attending. Though Charlie Puth might not be as well known as I thought, the Charlottesville leg of Charlie The Live Experience was magic; to say the least.
I have never been fond of outdoor venues. The sun acting as a harsh light can kill the mood of a show. So, I was less than thrilled to see the sun was still in the sky when opener Blu DeTiger took the stage. The amount of light entering the venue didn’t outshine her, however. She lit up the stage with groovy basslines and an electric personality. I was slightly familiar with her music before this show but her stage presence was beyond anything I could have imagined. I found myself completely enthralled with the performance. She pranced around the stage and made good use of every corner to show off her skills to the audience.
When Blu’s set came to a close I was hyped for what Charlie had in store for us. As the sun went down the stage lights came up and Charlie emerged. The crowd went insane. He began his set with a bit of a skit. He skipped through a Rolodex of songs after running into a beautiful girl on a jog. He skipped through many tracks that expressed his emotions before landing on a particular classic that influenced him to write his opening song, Charlie Be Quiet. Ironically when the first few notes were sung the crowd was anything but quiet. Screaming the lyrics in a tone that made pitch-perfect Puth ecstatic.
The setlist continued in this pattern. It was incredibly interesting to see how Charlie’s mind works in the studio. How each piece came together to form the incredibly well-produced tracks that made it onto his self-titled studio album. He even sang covers of tracks that influenced him as an artist. Songs such as Slow Motion by Trey Songs and Dreaming of You by Selena served as both transitions and reminders of the tracks that impacted his songwriting.
The show came to a climactic end with "See You Again" closing out his performance and leaving the crowd completely in awe. Charlie is a phenomenal performer. Each second of the show was perfectly curated to match the mood he was conveying and the skits he was acting.
So, The next time someone scoffs or asks “Who the hell is Charlie Puth” I’ll feel even more confident in sharing his music with the world.
Written By Kaiana Lee
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