A Mystical Magical Night in Dallas on the 'Wanted Man' Tour
On Friday, August 21st, Benson Boone kicked off the Dallas leg of his 'Wanted Man' tour opening with Luna li as the opening act. She performed some of her hit songs such as "2516", "Harp Jam" and many others. Her stage presence was very calm, a lot of the songs were very instrumental creating a unique atmosphere. Her voice was very soft and angelic. Until this night I had not heard of her, but after the show I’m definitely a fan. Even without big flashing lights and bouncing around on stage she manages to keep your attention, her voice alone can do that.
Before Benson Boone kicked off his Dallas performance, he had the venue playing music before hand of older classic rock, some new age pop such as Harry Styles which had the crowd singing along. The crowd was singing along loudly when the music abruptly shut off cause the fans to scream in anticipation of the stars performance. The show started with words on a screen like the rolling text of star wars saying, "Long ago there lived a boy and a girl / they had a love / a love that ruled the world / and from afar everything was grand / until the night of the wanted man." Then the lights hit center stage, and Boone appeared on stage in the Spiderman pose. He came out strong with "Sorry Im Here For Someone Else" off the album 'American Heart', bouncing up and down the stage making sure to divide his time evenly with every part of the stage.
A massive, figure-eight-shaped stage with several levels, steps, a sizable ramp, and a runway bordered by lights had replaced the basketball arena's wooden court. Boone would use it all throughout the evening, dancing, running, strutting, and, of course, flipping his way through the performance. Benson has one of best stage presences I’ve ever seen in an artist. He’s full of charisma that just radiates off of him. He then performed the first backflip of the night and the crowd screamed with such intensity; I thought I might need hearing aids after. He then immediately went into "Mr Electric Blue", which personally I think is my favorite song of his.
Throughout the night he performed many of his hits like wanted man which the tour is based off, and other like drunk in my mind, slow it down and others. He teased the crowd by saying “we weren’t gonna play this song tonight because you guys don’t know it” and then proceeded to sing the first couple of lines to show which song, and the crowd begun to sing along immediately to which he responded with “so you do know it....I’m just kidding of course we will” he then immediately jumps into "Mystical Magical" A.K.A moonbeam ice cream as it’s referred to online. After he sang pretty slowly he disappeared off stage, to which I assumed he was changing wardrobes but then the stage screen split apart and out came Benson on a giant star gliding through the sky as he performed in the stars. People began to sing along to the heart wrenching song.
After he began to sing "My Greatest Fear" but before hand he talked about how the meaning of this song started off as his fear of losing someone special. Then how performing it countless times the meaning has changed to a new fear. The fear of losing his fans and his fans losing him. Two of his most die hard fans made a super secret project to surprise benson during the song fans “chloesutherlin” and “nataliebarnes_” on Instagram took it upon themselves to cut out thousands of different color paper hearts to pass out to everyone at the show to use on their phone flashlights while he performed. It blew him away after the song he talked about how that was insane and how there’s so many hearts here and how sweet it was he then proceeded to jump off stage and make his way to the fans at the barricade and hug them and talk to them for a second. It was truly something spectacular to watch.
I think the total number of hearts was 16,000 in total. He then proceeded to play more hits and finally ending the show with young "American Heart", which at the end a million pieces of red white and blue confetti were launched all over the arena from canons signaling the shows ending. Overall, Benson was one of the best performers I’ve seen in long time, his stage presence, the way he talks with fans and just overall the way he presents himself makes him truly one of a kind. So to those of you at home wondering if you should buy those tickets, do it you won’t regret it.
