All Pop - Artists

By MIKE ROSS
Edmonton Sun EDMONTON -- Guys: If your significant other attended last night's Savage Garden concert in Skyreach Centre, there's one thing you ought to know - there's no way in hell you will ever live up to the unfair standards of sheer hunkiness set by lead singer Darren Hayes.

This guy is obviously a freak of nature. He's capable of making women go into spasms of sexual desire with a simple gesture. Hayes demonstrated this frightening power on a crowd of 7,000 made up largely of women - the target demographic. A deceptively sedate audience at first, they were appreciative during the opening set from Kina - a rock 'n' soul sister from Detroit with a lot of promise. Then they lost their minds when Savage Garden took the stage. From teens to middle-age, it didn't seem to matter. They all loved their Darren. My female companion claimed that just watching him strut across the stage would've been enough. Hayes did a lot more than that. Backed by dazzling production, he proved to be a singing, dancing, charisma machine.

As Savage Garden appears to be the Wham! of the '00s, it was all Hayes's show. The other guy - guitarist Daniel Jones - came across as just that: The other guy, the Andrew Ridgeley of Savage Garden, as it were. From the first notes of The Best Thing and into songs from the band's two albums, all female eyes were on the Australian frontman. Screams accompanied his every move as he posed and crooned his way through a set of tunes whose romantic sentiments were matched only by the polished bombast with which they were delivered. Topics included love, love and more love. There was a lot of love in the room. Sample lyric: "I want to stand with you on a mountain. I want to bathe with you in the sea." As cliched and cloying as some of the lines sound, Hayes left little doubt that he truly, madly, deeply believes every sweet nothing he sings. The crowd ate it up.

As in 1998, the show was one part Vegas, one part Chippendales and one part flashy rock 'n' roll show. The difference, aside from having another album of tunes to draw from, was clear in the quality of the music - especially the vocals. No lip-syncing was evident this time. After being lumped in with the boy-band trend, Hayes is proving that he has talent to go with that pretty face.

Along with lots of flash and a blinding white disco suit for the encore, there were quite a few unbearably romantic moments. Prior to an interlude of piano ballads - ending with John Lennon's Imagine, sung as though it were a love song like all the others - he said, "I just want to speak to you from here." He pointed to his heart (cue screaming), knowing actions speak louder than words. The girls were in heaven. Sighted flying on the stage at one point was a bra - a big one, too - adding to the throw pillow and flowers previously tossed. After an extensive world tour that doesn't end until December, the crew must have quite a collection of female undergarments.

During the mid-tempo love song Hold Me, Hayes paused as if on cue to borrow a girl's camera. He then brought her on stage and posed with her while a friend snapped their picture. Sure, it was choreographed, right down to the break in the song where he said, "what's your name?" Hayes has this down to a science by now. But you can bet that "Christie from Edmonton" won't forget this night any time soon - and neither will her significant other.

Garden of delight