Sam Smith owns their musicality and identity at 'Gloria' concert in Manila
Between his 2013 debut solo single Lay Me Down and last year’s Unholy, Sam Smith has amassed a long list of indelible chart-topping hits that are the stuff of dreams (and envy) for many artists, including more senior stars. So why is it that none of those songs figure in the most poignant, most potent, most powerful number in his current world tour, Gloria? Because the person behind the artist has become an integral part of the Sam Smith narrative.
The number comes at the tail-end of the show and is built around Human Nature, a song by Madonna that peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart in 1995. The original track, a thumping hip-hop-inflected R&B tune, may have been a minor hit but it instantly secured a place for itself in the music canon of defiant self-expression and liberation from societal taboos on sex, sexuality, and gender norms upon its release in 1994 as part of the queen of pop’s album Bedtime Stories. It’s Madonna’s unapologetic clapback at critics who descended upon her during her previous “sex”-filled era of the Erotica album, the Sex photo book, the Body of Evidence erotic thriller movie, The Girlie Show peep show of a concert tour, and her infamous expletive-laden guesting in The David Letterman Show. “Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex,” goes one unrepentant line in the song, immediately followed by, “I didn’t know I couldn’t speak my mind.”
Its cachet grew even more with its iconic music video that sees Madonna and her troupe of lithe and sinewy dancers, garbed in S&M-inspired shiny latex catsuits with matching props (whips, chains, blindfolds, ropes, swings), performing a sharply choreographed dance routine that’s heavy on movements and imagery about struggling inside boxes and breaking free from bondage.
“This night, this show is about freedom,” Sam declared at the start of Gloria. That musical story would unravel steadily for the next hour and a half with a three-part narrative arc, each given a proper title and a short prose expounding on the theme. As the narrative builds, so do the music and the mood, from the elegant ballads of the Love segment to the spirited mid-tempo jams and upbeat tunes of Beauty to the dark, moody, evocative, but ultimately rapturous and empowering climax, Sex.
It’s as much the story of Sam’s career as it is their personal life. They came out as non-binary in 2019 and have since been on a very public journey towards full self-expression and total freedom in their art, completely embracing the Human Nature mantra “Express yourself, don’t repress yourself.”
Sam actually wears it on their sleeve, and the rest of their body, in the show. The first time they step onto the stage they are in gold—boots, loose pants, and a corset straight out of Marie Antoniette’s closet by way of Madonna. They open the next segment wearing a head-to-foot wedding veil pinned on the head by a golden crown. Later on, they put on a fabulous, showstopping super oversized pink tulle extravaganza that wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood Barbie’s closet and a sparkly silver dress that’s one half disco diva frock and one half wedding ball gown. For Human Nature in the finale, they literally strip down to only a black leather thong with only a pair of black strips covering each nipple, exposing his full figure, flabs and all.
“I’m not sorry, it’s human nature,” Sam intones in a scorched earth slowed-down rendition of the song before going to the verse, “You wouldn’t let me say the words I longed to say, you didn't want to see life through my eyes, you tried to shove me back inside your narrow room, and silence me with bitterness and lies.”
The diatribe is specifically directed at critics and fans who took and continue to take issue not only with Smith’s sexuality but also their body size. Gloria, both the tour and the same-titled 2023 album it promotes, is Smith’s glorious celebration of their artistry and, perhaps, more importantly, their identity. And it’s totally thrilling, even emotional, to witness and experience such an open, unabashed declaration on the concert stage in the Philippines which, despite the seeming popularity of LGBTQ+ culture in mainstream media, remains rather prudish in outward expressions of queerness.
To be sure, Smith wasn’t the first major artist, local or international, to bring this energy—the sexually-charged choreography, the risque costumes, the same-sex onstage kisses, the devil-may-care attitude—to the local concert scene. Madonna did it first, in 2015 with her Rebel Heart Tour, in the very same venue—MOA Arena. And this latest tour by the 31-year-old British artist owes a whole lot to the grande dame of pop. But Smith is the first actual queer star to do so. That’s the ultimate glory of this beaut of a show called Gloria.