David Cook
Manchester 65
West Warwick, RI
November 8, 2013

In 2008, David Cook became the winner of the seventh season of American Idol. He’s taking some time off from writing his third post-Idol album, and returned to Rhode Island, playing at Manchester 65, a new music venue in West Warwick.

Most Dangerous Men Alive

Opening band Most Dangerous Men Alive is a relatively local band, from South Shore Massachusetts. They were a basic bar band, playing a mix of originals, and covers such as “What I Got” by Sublime and an acoustic version of “Wake Me Up” by Avicii. Their music is very laid back and jam-based. I found them to be fairly unremarkable, but their singer had stated they’ve only been a band for about three months, so perhaps they’ll improve with time. One thing that stood out was their singer insisting everyone would enjoy the show more if they followed his example, and took their shoes off. Maybe that would have improved them for me.

Satellites Fall

Another New England based band, indie-rock band Satellites Fall was a much higher energy, well rehearsed and polished act.

After we got there, I discovered the bass player is cousin with a good friend whose wedding I recently shot. All of her family, who of course knew me from shooting the wedding, was in the crowd! That made for a fun surprise for us.

While their indie-rock sound doesn’t match my tastes, I can respect their musicianship. They were definitely able to get the crowd warmed up

David Cook

Since releasing This Loud Morning in 2011, David Cook parted ways with RCA Records, and has since signed with XIX Recordings, the label of American Idol creator Simon Fuller. Cook has been writing a new album, which he says is coming out “soon.”

The setlist consisted of five or six new songs, a couple of covers, and another dozen or so tracks off his previous albums. They played an ominous cover of “Wicked Games” by Chris Issak, on which Cook played keyboards. The other covers included Prince’s “Purple Rain” during the encore, while earlier in the night, they mixed a verse of “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis into a song.

My wife and I saw Cook at Lupo’s in Providence in 2009, but due to extreme traffic for Waterfire, missed about a third of his set. It was nice to see an entire set this time. Manchester 65 is a much more intimate venue, which can make for more personal shows. Cook interacted with the crowd frequently, discussing the set, letting the crowd decide what was played next at times, and a couple of times he took cameras from people in the crowd to take pictures for them from the stage!

If I had to guess, I’d say there was between around 300-400 people in the crowd. Another recent American Idol winner played Rhode Island this month, to a crowd of less than 50 people. I suppose it just shows that 75 million votes in the finale doesn’t translate to an automatic huge career. Cook is certainly talented, and perhaps next year, while supporting a new album, and presumably radio single, he’ll be able to draw a larger crowd.

One of the things that jumped out at me last time was how he had a monster band backing him up, and it was no different this time. All the members of the band are phenomenal musicians.

Cook closed the show with his new single, “Laying me Low,” which he released on iTunes earlier this year. Cook says plans are to record the new album after the tour is done in a few weeks, so you can expect to hear these other new songs in early 2014.