LIVE: Luke James captivates the audience at the Hamilton Live DC

photos: Victoria Ford/Sneakshot Photography

Friday night at The Hamilton, singer-songwriter Luke James gave a stellar performance to the intimate crowd.  The young artist has developed quite a following, considering his first official album only came out last week.  Born in New Orleans, he began his musical career singing background vocals for Tyrese. He was picked to be the opening act for Beyonce’s 2013 The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour based off of 2 highly acclaimed mixtapes and a Grammy nomination for the song “I Want You.”

The mostly female crowd was swooning from the first a cappella notes of Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel.” After just one verse he jumped into songs from his newly released self-titled debut album and never looked back. He commanded the crowd with his wide-ranging vocals and catchy songs, to which most of the crowd new the lyrics to already. Did I mention his album was released only 4 days prior to this show?

Near the end of the smooth and sexy “Make Love To Me” he crooned some lines from Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” to the crowds delight. After “Exit Wounds,” he asked the crowd for requests and people were shouting out their favorites that they wanted to hear. He settled on “I.O.U.” from his cd and the whimsical “Strawberry Vapors” from one of his earlier mixtapes (both mixtapes are available to download for free on his website)

He closed the set with a soul-stirring cover of Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me” and the hit song that got people to start to notice him and his amazing vocals, “I Want You.” It was a wonderful show, and this young artist definitely will be around wowing audiences for years to come.

Setlist:

The Way You Make Me Feel
Dancing In The Dark
Exposé
Make Love To Me/Sexual Healing (Marvin Gaye)
TimeX
Oh God
Options
Exit Wounds
I.O.U.
Strawberry Vapors
Stay With Me
I Want You