nicole calascibetta looks at the handsome men with guitars tour…
Teddy Geiger, Tyler Hilton and Ryan Cabrera stepped onto The Stone Pony stage thursday night for the first show on their 2013 tour. The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ had roughly 230 people show up to the venue, many of who were anxious young girls (and their parents) waiting to see their musical crush. Special guest, Rebecca Pearl, a young woman with a soft voice and an acoustic guitar, was the first opener. She performed songs off of her 6 track EP along with her cover of “Pumped Up Kicks.”
Teddy Geiger began his set behind a keyboard accompanied by drums. “Last time I was here was in ’07,” said Geiger. His first song was “These Walls” off his 2006 record Underage Thinking. Other songs performed from Underage Thinking included “Night Air” and the once mega-popular tune “For You I Will.” Halfway through Geiger’s set, his acoustic guitar suffered technical difficulties and he quickly picked up an electric instead. Between his performance on the keyboard and his accidental use of electric guitar, Geiger produced good energy and played three unreleased songs.
Following Geiger was Tyler Hilton, the obvious “bad boy” of the night. He performed songs from his album Forget the Storm such as “Jenny” and “Loaded Gun”, released on April 3rd, 2012. Hilton had a part-time role as cocky musician Chris Keller on the hit show One Tree Hill and his most recent album Live in Atlanta, was released on December 18th, 2012. Keller…I mean Hilton, appeared to be the crowd favorite and gave a decent performance with a tougher sound than Geiger or Cabrera. We were given the show of a rough and rugged bad-boy addicted to love and music that made the young girls and their mothers quiver.
In between throwing around curses on stage, performing his acoustic driven music and talking about his past loves who just didn’t understand him, he would sneak off behind the sound board, slip on his glasses and then watch his other tour mates with a reassuring smile, even for lesser known artist Rebecca Pearl. Off stage he gave me the sense that on stage he had trouble separating his acting from his music.
Although Tyler Hilton would probably win crowd favorite, Teddy Geiger gave the best overall performance. This is because Geiger didn’t just stick to the acoustic guitar (even if it was a result of technical difficulties), he had one of the best vocals and was the only artist of the night that didn’t use cover songs to take up space in their setlist.
The show of acoustic pop love songs continued as headliner Ryan Cabrera performed tunes like “On The Way Down” and “Shine On”. He announced to the audience that a new record is in the works. “It’s been about five years since I put out an album, it just wasn’t ready. Now it’s ready,” said Cabrera. He played his latest single “I See Love” released back in August, 2012 and even though Cabrera headlined the show, he managed to play the least amount of songs.
That night Geiger, Hilton and Cabrera gave their fans what they expected. In my opinion, if these artists focused more on their music than trying to keep up an image, they could expand their fan base and take their music careers to another level. Even performing a couple songs together on stage might of enhanced the show. As for now, the “pretty boys with instruments tour” will continue.
http://youtu.be/_uTgHlURKH0
