I went to see Michael Buble at the Concert Hall last night and, while I acknowledge that he’s got a good voice and an affable stage manner, I still can’t come to grips with the extreme crowd reaction. He had an audience ranging in age from teens to 70s hollering with approval at his tuneful but hardly earth-shattering renditions of jazz and swing standards, with the odd pop song and thrown in for good measure. When he sang songs made famous by Ray Charles, Peter Allen, Freddie Mercury, Otis Redding and Frank Sinatra, it made me hungry for their unique talents, not his. Still, the band was pretty hot and Buble was amusing some of the time (although the patter went on a little too long). More importantly, he didn’t offend me by “phoning it in”, as Rod Stewart did on his most recent tour.