In this busy time of celebrating Everything – Clay Aiken, we would like to take a moment to celebrate a small achievement here at CANN. Some time in the middle of Sunday night, we reached 200,000 hits on our site.
Little did we imagine when the site started about a year and a half ago that we would reach this exciting milestone.
This will be the 825th post on this blog. We have covered many topics from news of Broadway, the music industry and even some short bios of some of the people who have supported Clay in his musical career. Of course, the news about Clay Aiken is always our top priority.
We have had visitors from Brazil to Saudi Arabia, Japan to Ghana, and Pakistan to the United Kingdom. Each visitor is an important part of our family and the ClayNation. I hope that some of our visitors from all over the world will stop by and say hello. We all want to know each other better and share the excitement of Everything – Clay Aiken. Just click on the comment number under the blog and say a quick hello! Also, be sure to check out the small map at the bottom right of the page. Give it a click and you will see that we are a world-wide site. It is fun to see so many hits from all over the world.
We are sending a huge Thank You to all of you for your support and encouragement. Please let us know if you have some ideas to help the site and it’s always nice to hear when you enjoy something too.
Now for some REAL CLAY AIKEN NEWS!!
Ben Wener from the Orange County Register wrote an interesting review of the concert in Los Angeles Sunday night.
Mr. Werner really enjoyed himself at the concert and it is so nice to read a review from someone who actually was there and didn’t mail the review in before the show. The article is long, but a few nice comments are:
- An only slightly old-fashioned Southern gentleman with natural comic timing, Aiken has further bolstered his reputation via memorably funny television appearances, especially as a frequent guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Methinks he envies the host: quick-witted but ever-sweet Aiken would be perfect for a revamp mash-up of The Mike Douglas Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show……
- Each vocalist shined on his own: in addition to nailing the sky-high notes on Orleans’ “Still the One” and (in the Seventies Medley) Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” Aiken capably handled Elvis’ “Suspicious Minds” and Manilow’s “Mandy,” while Studdard expertly summoned the grit of Otis Redding (for “Bring It on Home to Me”) and the effortless glide of Marvin Gaye (on a silken segue from “Mercy Mercy Me” into “What’s Going On”) before impressing as usual with his nuanced, Luther Vandross-informed reading of Leon Russell’s “Superstar.”
- Aiken and Studdard steamrolled gleefully through material both expectedly glossy and uncharacteristic. The Motown gems suited the latter as much as the power ballads of Chicago and REO Speedwagon were tailored for the former, but what I can’t shake is the sight of Aiken kicking off Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” or both of them kicking up their heels for Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison” and New Kids on the Block’s “The Right Stuff.”
- It’s such a schmaltzy conception that I often found myself wanting these two to give me a reason to loathe their performance — except that I kept enjoying myself. Loosely silly as their show is, it’s also unabashedly joyful, and above all smoothly executed … a simple entertainment that could have legs if given half a chance and a bigger budget … a kinda-corny, kinda-cute variety show …
You can read the entire review by visiting the website….OCRegister Don’t forget to leave a message to let the writer and paper know Clay and Ruben have fans that support them and support people who write legitimate reviews.
