Keeping it simple and real: After seven years away from the mic, Maxwell is back! The neo-soul crooner performed to a packed house at the Chicago Theater on Sweetest Day. And with tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat, he thanked the crowd–seve
Keeping it simple and real: After seven years away from the mic, Maxwell is back!
The neo-soul crooner performed to a packed house at the Chicago Theater on Sweetest Day. And with tears in his eyes and a lump in his throat, he thanked the crowd–several times–for coming out.
“I’m going to try my hardest to live up to the love” and support he said the crowd showed by being at the concert, without the multi-Grammy Award-nominated recording artist having a new album out.
“Just a lil som’n in my eye,” Maxwell said in a brief pause in his sensuous and high energy performance.
On the street, Maxwell could easily be incognito after trimming his funky afro down to a handsome crew cut. But onstage, as soon as he started the first falsetto notes of his hugely popular love songs, there was no mistaking the 35-year-old vocal dynamo.
From Lifetime, This Woman’s Work, Ascension and other hits, to new material he has yet to release, Maxwell was the envy of men and the dream of women attending the Saturday night concert.
With his flirty intros and suggestive song finales, the euphonic artist drew “I love you”s from the crowd.
For more than an hour, Maxwell, dressed in a slim-fitting charcoal gray suit with an undone bowtie flung around his neck, and gyrated, juked and grooved to the enjoyment of the audience.
The concert was the latest stop on his multi-city tour that opened in South Africa earlier this month and will run up until Thanksgiving.
There is no release date for the Brooklyn native’s fourth album, Black Summer’s Night, but from the sampling he gave at the concert, it promises to be more of the same–and that’s a good thing.
To see photos from the concert, click here.
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