Not every singer would choose to hit the road a handful of days after breaking their wrist in a head-on collision, but back in January, Kris Allen did just that. The season eight American Idol winner has been soldiering on – sans guitar – through his aptly named Out Alive Tour, which hit the West Coast in early February and is wrapping up in Colorado later this week.
To mix it up a bit on this tour, the singer-songwriter got his fans involved by asking them to request songs via Twitter that they would like to hear him and his band (Cale Mills, Chris Torres, and Andrew St. Marie) cover each night.
"In coming up with the set, you just want the fans, especially nowadays, you want them to have a reason to come to shows," Allen explained during my interview with him last week prior to performing to a sold-out crowd later that evening at Café du Nord in San Francisco, CA.
"People aren't coming to shows like they used to and that's okay, I get it, but I think that's just another reason for them to come every night and see if I'm going to do their song, possibly. It keeps us on our toes too, which is really good, because we could ... [do] the same thing every night, which is cool and a lot of people do that, but ... it helps us get warmed up before the shows too. We get to play and kind of sing a little bit, so it's good."
The singer said that he lets people know he's looking for a song "around two-three o'clock in the afternoon" and doesn't start going through the requests for the night until a few hours prior to the show as to allow for a greater choice of options.
Article comments
1 - Sahsouha1
Thanks for another very good -but short- write up! I am a fan of both Kris & You. :)
2 - SaraVee
My top 5 requests: Wicked Game, Cry Me a River, As Long As You Love Me (reggae), When Doves Cry, and High and Dry. And Breakdown - ok, that's 6. LOL - they're all really good! But Kris has some great songs of his own and I'd be just as happy hearing his new, old, and even unreleased songs, tbh.
3 - Ruth Eddy
Great job Kirsten you never cease to amaze me of course now that you are pretty much BFF's it must be more comfortable than the first few times. I really enjoyed it. Keep it up girl your doing great.
4 - Mario X
I saw some of the requests Kris sang. Loved them all. Very creative to ask his fans to request a song for every show.
5 - kenny
What does it mean, "check out my full interview with Kris Allen below."? Below what? I don't see it.
6 - Kirsten Coachman
Hi Kenny,
There's a video interview with Kris on page two. If it is for some reason not showing up for you, here is the YouTube link: http://youtu.be/WSHGTfFCyF8
7 - Tribyen
Lovely interview, thanks for sharing!
8 - Beverly
Sound needs to be fixed. Can hardly hear the questions and some of the answers are garbled.