For a performance by ‘Mr. Saturday Night,’ paper tickets or wristbands wouldn’t do the trick. Sharpie-drawn smiley faces marked the hands of concert attendees at classic pop singer Julian Velard’s performance Friday night.

On Oct. 28, Velard and singer-songwriter Sharon Little made the third stop of their ‘Take the Money and Run’ tour at Funk ‘n Waffles.

‘Any time Julian hits me up, I give him a show,’ said Adam Gold, co-owner of Funk ‘n Waffles. ‘He’s a classy dude, he makes good music, (and) he seems to bring a great crowd.’

Stephen Babcock, a junior in the Bandier Program for Music and the Entertainment Industries and concert opener, described the atmosphere of the show as intimate. The underground waffle house hosted a mere 20 people, and a few had no intention of staying for the concert.

‘We’re just here to eat waffles,’ said a young man who walked into the shop with a friend. The two left the shop less than a minute into the first song of Babcock’s set.

As Babcock’s performance progressed, the crowd did not react as he had hoped.

‘Clap if you like it,’ Babcock said after performing a few songs and telling jokes that received little acknowledgement from the audience.

As the concert progressed, the small audience became more engaged. People in the crowd often communicated directly with Sharon Little during her performance.

‘As long as they’re screaming out stuff towards me, I’m happy,’ Little said about the audience’s interjectory comments. ‘It’s feedback. Silence is almost deadly in an audience.’

During Little’s performance, the audience was attentive and the waitress even sang and danced along to Little’s songs as she cleaned silverware by the cash register.

‘I think they were mostly Julian’s fans, but I got them to be mine,’ Little said.

Finally, headliner Julian Velard took the stage. After setting up a scene intended to replicate his studio apartment in Brooklyn, N.Y., Velard came out wearing a bowtie, boxing gloves and a cape that read, ‘Mr. Saturday Night,’ the name of his most recent studio album.

Rachel Warner, a longtime Velard fan, traveled an hour and a half from Utica, N.Y., to see his performance.  

‘He is such an amazing singer and performer,’ she said.

Velard incorporated skits in between songs involving everything from a Mickey Mouse phone to a cardboard cutout of Robert Duvall’s head on a stick. Warner reluctantly criticized Velard’s skits.

‘I’d rather hear 90 minutes of music than 75 minutes of music and fifteen minutes of skits,’ she said.

After Warner pleaded for an encore, Velard finally obliged and let her choose the song that he would perform.

‘I need the number to 911 right now because I might die,’ Warner said as Velard began to play.

‘It was totally out of love,’ said Velard about Warner’s outburst during his performance. ‘At a smaller venue, you’re always able to get a little more personal with the audience.’

Velard said he enjoyed the show’s atmosphere and felt that the small crowd was beneficial rather than detrimental.

 ‘If they’re putting out energy, it’s so much easier to perform. It makes the whole show go a lot smoother.’

ajallen@syr.edu

Published on October 30, 2011 at 12:00 pm