Ryan Cabrera is a basic.
Before his show at Newport Music Hall on Tuesday night, he sat in his bus deciding between Chipotle or Blaze Pizza for dinner.
Ryan Cabrera wears fleece-lined Ugg boots when it’s 60 degrees and raining outside.
Ryan Cabrera suffers from FOMO, admitting that the hardest part of being on tour is seeing all his friends’ posts online about what they’re doing back in LA.
Ryan Cabrera has dated stars of three different reality TV shows.
“That just happened to be who I was dating at the time, and they happened to be on shows,” Cabrera said.
Once is a fluke. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is just … something.
But this isn’t a review of Ryan Cabrera’s life. Background information helps, but this should be about the music.
Ryan Cabrera’s last full-length album came out seven years ago in 2008.
He released an EP titled “Wake Up Beautiful” last month. He plans to release a full-length album later this year.
His show Tuesday night was part of the “Radio Revival Tour” he co-headlines with Secondhand Serenade.
Ryan Cabrera is trying to revive the radio and himself with his new album.
“I’m a big lyric guy,” he said. “This album, I stuck to not doing pointless lyrics that just sound cool and are the trending thing to talk about — which is a lot of the stuff on the radio now.”
Lyrics from one of his latest songs, “House on Fire,” include: “We can burn (burn burn) / Faster than the world can turn / ‘Til we fade away.”
Truly groundbreaking.
Ryan Cabrera was the last of five bands to go on to a crowd of about one hundred.
He opened with “40 Kinds of Sadness,” from his 2004 multi-platinum debut album “Take It All Away.”
It’s not the most original song. It doesn’t explain what those 40 flavors of heartbreak taste like. It doesn’t say anything revolutionary about relationships. But it got all one hundred people in attendance singing along.
Ryan Cabrera went on to sing some of his new songs, but in between there would be shouts from the crowd for his older hits.
“I haven’t had enough to drink yet — but I will,” he told the crowd, sounding almost defeated.
Before he played “On the Way Down,” he said, “Let’s kick it back to 2004. I don’t know how old you guys were then.”
I was nine, Ryan Cabrera, and watching you on “The Ashlee Simpson Show.”
When he played “True,” also from his 2004 debut, he struggled to get his voice to go high enough for the last few lines, causing the song to end in a disconnected mess.
Ryan Cabrera is 32. He was 21 when “Take It All Away” came out. Voice changes and personal style changes are to be expected.
But I think he has to commit. If he wants to slick his hair back and write about deeper subjects with songs that are in his range, do it. He could pull a Britney or a Miley and completely rebel from his MTV roots.
Shave your head or something, Ryan Cabrera.
The alternative is to keep wearing Uggs, keep dating reality stars and keep playing songs from a decade ago that people actually know.
I never said there was anything wrong with being basic.