Indeed, with songs so silken and seamless as to be soporific, the 30-year-old R&B balladeer has emerged as the preeminent practitioner of vanilla latte soul for the sport coat-and-cravat crowd, a Brian McKnight for Generation Y.
To his credit, Legend affects a winsome affability on-stage and knows his role, winking at the audience, “I'm just here to set things off for y'all." In response, the capacity crowd swooned and swayed. The show was more akin to an hour-and-a-half love-in than rhythm-and-blues revue.
Blessed with a golden-throated baritone, virtuosic piano chops, a slick backing band (with horn section) and the clean-cut charm to make his heavily female fan-base faint, Legend's strengths also reveal his flaws. So adept at sparking ardor, Legend's songbook is almost astonishingly one-note. Which wouldn't necessarily be a problem were the songs not so sonically similar in construction (mawkish piano-based slow jams or up-tempo Usher-lite workouts) and laden with clich.
In particular, “P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)," with its admonition of “let's go to the park," and banal video images of people frolicking on swing sets, was saccharine enough to cause root canal. The standout tracks from Legend's Evolver album, “Quickly," “It's Over" and “Green Light," suffered without the high-wattage charisma of their respective guest stars, Brandy, Kanye West and OutKast's Andre 3000.
At one point, Legend stressed the importance of the slow jam to young lovers, name-dropping the tunes on which he grew up.
Ultimately, this makes Legend impossible to dislike but infinitely less interesting than his A-list peers -- less acrobatic than Usher, less creative than T-Pain and less idiosyncratic than R. Kelly. Underneath the greaser jacket, Legend was nattily attired in a checkered shirt and strawberry red tie. He looked like a consummate professional. Maybe next time he'll loosen the knot.
