The lights were dimmed down low and only his voice, backed up by his band could be heard for the first few seconds Sunday night.
Michael Bolton, the internationally renowned and Grammy award-winning singer and songwriter had arrived in Hazleton, peppering his sets with stories and a few jokes.
And his fans reciprocated, often shouting back with outbursts of "Michael!" and "I love you!," while Bolton performed at the Wiltsie Center at the Historic Castle in Hazleton.
The music began and Bolton could be found sitting on the stage in a chair with a guitar in his hands, wearing blue jeans, a black blazer and a black shirt as he performed his first song for the evening, "To Love Somebody," to cheering fans.
"Hello Hazleton, Pennsylvania," he said to the screaming fans.
"We have a lively audience on our hands, do we?" he asked.
"We love you!," a woman yelled from the seats, while another piped in, "Michael!" a few seconds later.
"I'm not sure what you're saying but thank you very much," he said, as the crowd laughed along with him.
He did hear a fan yell, "Happy Birthday!" to him and quickly joked back that he now denies having birthdays and "in fact, I'm just going to go backwards from here."
It may as well have been a special birthday celebration for some of his fans.
Since she was little, Darian Pozniak, 33, and her friend, Eisha Smith, dreamed of what Bolton looked like and culling information from his songs, created images of what the places he sang about looked like.
Pozniak, now of Hazleton and Smith, now of McAdoo, grew up in Jamaica and had no television to show them live pictures of either. So, listening to the radio both used their creativity and his songs as inspiration to create pictures of the world for themselves. They also dreamed of one day meeting him and with Bolton playing so close to their homes, they finally got the chance to see him up close.
Pozniak wanted to hear him sing, "Georgia on My Mind," one of the songs he covered that she loved the most and one that she pictured like a movie in her head as she heard him sing on her radio years ago in Jamaica.
"He made it seem like the most romantic place," Pozniak said.
Bolton, Smith said, was popular in Jamaica as a rhythm and blues artist when they were girls. She said Bolton really has a lot of soul when he sings, and meaning in his songs not like a lot of "R&B that kids listen to today."
"You have to have soul and to have soul, you have to be Michael Bolton," Smith said.
Pozniak brought her two teenage children, Jonathan Pozniak and Serecia Durson and their aunt, Cindy Maldonado, of Florida and Pozniak's friend, Jennifer Whitner, of Hazleton with her. Together the group snapped pictures of each other before entering the venue, happy to be there.
Marylou Meister, of Drums went to the concert with her sister, Jean Romanelli and both were equally as excited to hear Bolton perform.
Meister said she found out about the concert through an advertisement in the Standard-Speaker and was pleased to see he was performing at the Wiltsie, in the same school she once attended classes.
Sue Smith of Hughesville said her husband of 18 years, Ron, surprised her one morning a few weeks ago and Sunday night drove about one hour to see Bolton. As Ron sat at the computer he told his wife, "Well, I just ordered you tickets to see Michael Bolton," Sue said, while Ron stood next to her, waiting to find their seats at the center Sunday. The last time the couple saw Bolton was about 20 years ago.
About 900 tickets were sold before the doors to the Wiltsie were opened Sunday night. With just 10 minutes to show time, Bob Mehalick, of the Wiltsie Center, said he believed more than 1,000 tickets had been sold through Sunday.
Mehalick said out of the 11 national acts the Wiltsie has hosted since it opened in 2011, the Bolton concert, which was near capacity, was one of the best selling. Mehalick said the center's next upcoming performances include George Thorogood on March 10 and Fiddler on the Roof on April 17.
achristman@standardspeaker.com
Sylvia,. Your wee Scottish friend.
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