ARTICLE: Pop music review: Joe Jonas strains to fill the bill at House of Blues
September 30th, 2011 | filed in: Article, Joe Jonas, Latest News, Performance

At 22, Joe Jonas has already experienced the heights of music industry success. His days as co-lead singer for the wholesome, Disneyfied rock band Jonas Brothers exposed him to hordes of screaming girls around the world and culminated in the rare Cowboys Stadium gig in 2009. Yeah, those brothers were big.

But fans of boy bands tend to grow up fast and leave their old obsessions behind without much warning. That might explain why House of Blues was only about half full on Thursday night when the middle Jonas performed tunes from his upcoming solo album.

The several hundred teens and young adults who took in the school-night show still displayed plenty of passion for the singer, so all was not lost. But Joe — charismatic and talented as he may be — will need to step up his game if he dreams of making Timberlake waves.

A drummer, keyboardist, three dancers and fancy stand-up lighting rigs backed the singer as he tore through a handful of electro-leaning dance-pop songs from his debut album Fastlife, out Oct. 11. Jonas was in good spirits and seemingly glad to be in front of a home crowd — he and his brothers relocated to Westlake in 2008.

He played the part of suave pop crooner convincingly enough during the short set, driving girls crazy with well-choreographed hip thrusts. His new tunes, including recent singles “See No More” and “Just In Love,” were danceable but somewhat unimaginative, melody-wise. Things got worse with a diary-ripped ballad called “Sorry” — most likely about ex Taylor Swift — before getting a little better with party-ready fare — a funked-up version of the JoBros’ “Burning Up,” a cover of Chris Brown’s “Beautiful People.”

Perhaps ol’ Joe will find more mojo when he joins Britney Spears on a European tour this fall. He’s got potential. At the very least, he outperformed opening act Jay Sean by a mile — we didn’t catch an earlier set by the gifted singer JoJo.

Sean, a high-voiced British singer known for the Lil Wayne-featuring radio hit “Down,” seemed more concerned with pandering to the crowd between songs than pushing out decent vocals or choreography. Doesn’t he know the deal about high-school girls? Their screams don’t always mean there’s something good happening on stage. Sometimes they just need to scream.

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