D'Angelo has a knack for making records that enhance life at any volume. Play 2000's Voodoo or last year's surprise follow-up Black Messiah on low, in the background, and you'll still pick up on the surface grooves. Lean in and turn the music up, though, and the layers can be endlessly revealing and rewarding.
That in mind, it was difficult to know what to expect on Tuesday night at the Bomb Factory, having never witnessed the 41-year-old artist's prodigious talent in person. Would the few thousand excited fans in Deep Ellum's biggest room discover a D'Angelo hellbent on achieving sonic perfection, or would he truly let loose and send his hypnotic compositions into the stratosphere?
Playing 13 super-sized jams over the course of two hours on Tuesday, the singer and his 10-piece band the Vanguard produced an explosion of funk, soul, jazz and rock. Their Second Coming Tour offered both the joyous party vibes of Prince and the high-energy soul revival of James Brown. D'Angelo seemed to be on Cloud 9 throughout.
Rocking a smile that could light up the world and a variety of capes, hats and other accoutrements, the Virginia native simultaneously served as tireless showman and bandleader. A drummer, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, horn players and scene-stealing backup singers (Kendra Foster, especially) matched their leader in both intensity and skill. They helped him lend live urgency to most of the songs from Black Messiah, extending some into exuberant jams and allowing D'Angelo to soothe and smolder on others.
Set opener "Ain't That Easy" somehow swung harder than it does on the record, with the percussive claps and horn flourishes coming through louder and more clearly. Same goes for the bursts of brass and D'Angelo's strategically placed cries of "Good God!" on the sexy stomper "Sugah Daddy."
The socio-political message fueling "The Charade" was communicated not only with lyrics but with choreography. At the end of the song, which D'Angelo had dedicated beforehand to the memories of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, the backup singers stood still with their fists in the air, letting their frontman's soulful screams and ad libs wash over the crowd.
The band handled delicate tunes as well or better than they did forceful ones, from the infectious rhythms of "Betray My Heart" and "Spanish Joint" to the warm chords of "Really Love."
It seemed D'Angelo felt as strong a connection with his crowd as he did with the Vanguard, too — he easily earned the floor crowd's hand-waving and chanting during a juiced-up rendition of his breakout 1995 hit "Brown Sugar."
After one encore set that ended with the Voodoo tune "Chicken Grease," the singer looked out at his admirers and asked them if they wanted to go home yet.
"Noooooo!" they screamed.
"Good God!" he proclaimed once again, and the funk kicked in. This back-and-forth went on for quite a while.
Enough of the crowd hung around to receive a second encore that provided the evening's climactic performance — a near-perfect take on 2000's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)."
As you might recall, that song was at one time overshadowed by D'Angelo's naked torso in its music video. Singing the show-stopper Tuesday night, he was fully clothed but still completely exposed. A true artist at work.
