Ruben Studdard took the stage at Caesars Cove Haven Sunday night dressed in a Big Poppa suit and BMW stocking cap - looking a little frosty but still smiling like Jerome Bettis after a touchdown.
And like The Bus, we don't hear Ruben's name so much these days. Yes, he won the second season of American Idol back in 2003 by the narrowest of margins, but the names Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, and Carrie Underwood impossibly seem to hold more weight than Ruben, and recently it even seems like Chris Daughtry is getting more love.
Unless there's a lawsuit or a traffic stop for his $3 million tour bus, mainstream media seems content to watch his star fall.
Still, more than 900 diehard fans sold out the Cove, and their idol and Velvet Teddy Bear delivered a V-Day vibe a few weeks early.
Studdard is touring on his third album, and he's sold more than two million combined. His hour-plus set ran the gamut of his influences - everything from R&B to gospel to soul. He brought a six-piece band and ran the show with a Storytellers feel, pausing frequently to joke with the audience.
He covered "Never Too Much" by Luther Vandross, and offered an interesting sentiment on his first single, Westlife's "Flying Without Wings."
"Clive Davis picks the songs for the finale, and I didn't like what he picked for me," he said. "He told me the mark of any great artist is the ability to make a song their own, and I was like yo, Clive Davis is giving me the 'I can't do it' speech. That's alright."
Studdard also performed another Idol hit, his take on the Al Green cover of the Bee Gees' "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart." At that point, he tossed his cap and had a little more fun with his salivating crowd.
"We always have five or six people at every show that wanna dictate the order of the set," he said. "If I play all the songs you want to hear right away, then ya'all be like 'OK see ya later, Rube.' I ain't sweated enough yet."
He kept a towel in hand for most of the set, and at one point, he staged a skit he called "Ruben Idol," where he picked three women from the crowd to come up onstage to "do what I do." Two of the women held their own as the band played Barry White's "Can't Get Enough of Your Love," and a third opted to dance.
"We ain't never had nobody up here dancing," Studdard joked. "She up here jukin' like we was at the fish fry."
Studdard busted out an outstanding medley that merged his old-school favorites with their copied, sampled, modern counterparts. He led the crowd in a rap-along to Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day," appropriately steering the band into the Isley Brothers' "Footsteps in the Dark." He kept the flow going, throwing down Biggie's "Big Poppa" with another Isley Brothers staple, "Between the Sheets." And this was the band playing these tunes, groovin' them with no tracks.
Studdard delivered other highlights like "No Ruben," "Sorry 2004," and "Change Me." He took one break where background vocalist T. Nasty led the crowd in a rousing sing-along of Gap Band's "Yearning for Your Love."
By show's end, it was clear Ruben is no dummy when it comes to his roots. He bulldozed his way to fame through a cutthroat medium, and his knowledge and respect for the ones that came before him cannot be disputed.
Having rolled in by way of Barbados, Studdard was under the weather and even thought he was in New York. But he quickly warmed up by immersing himself in a crowd that wanted to hug every inch of him, and he even obliged fans afterward. His pitch was strong, his band was tight, and if this is the new direction for shows at Caesars, we'll take it.
