An Intimate Evening with Jeremy Shada
Written by: Lindsey V. Britt
Dinner and a show are a rare luxury for most concerts nowadays, but not with Jeremy Shada. At the City Winery in Atlanta, which has great Truffle Fries, Jeremy Shada gave a one-of-a-kind concert performance the audience will never forget, with fans coming from the UK and Brazil just to be there to see one of their favorite artists singing songs from his recently released sophomore album “Neon Dreams” for the first time.
Described as a fun 1980s-inspired album, “Neon Dreams” is from the point of view of the same person, meant to be listened to in chronological order. Accompanied by his music producers Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount of ZK Productions, playing the actual instruments used to make all the songs in Jeremy’s solo discography, Jeremy started off the night jumping onto the stage with the first song of the album “Forever Young”.
The highlight of the evening for me was hearing the song “Ghosted,” inspired by the sound of the fictional ghost band “Sunset Curve” from the television series “Julie and the Phantoms” in which Jeremy starred as Reggie, one of the phantoms. Also made as a homage, thank you to that project and the fans that helped make his music career possible. The song immediately goes into another one of his hit songs “Midnight Promises” because of the translation at the end of the song that leads right into the next, which as a fan I noticed the easter egg when “Ghosted” was released and was excited to hear it live.
Although most of the songs written are more fictional like “Bad Boy” and "Takes One to Know One," with the album being told as a story, the final song of “Neon Dreams'' titled “City of Angels” is the one with the most personally inspired. It is based not only on Jeremy’s personal experience of being a young up-and-coming actor in Los Angeles trying to make things happen but also kind of based on people he knows and their ups and downs as well with the difficulties of the industry. Or should I have called the song City of Angles as Kenneth originally tilted the demo after misspelling Angels.
The night continued with Jeremy singing two fan-favorite ditties: the “Adventure Time Theme” and a “Julie and the Phantoms” classic, “This Band Is Back”. Followed by songs off his debut album “Vintage” and “Mad Love” EP such as “Stranger”, “Pretty Little Lies”, “Humphrey Bogart” and the iconically James Bond-inspired “If Looks Could Kill”, ending with the song that started it all “Ballerina” which was written as a birthday present for Jeremy’s lovely wife Carolynn who received the biggest round of applause, followed with an encore encouraged by his mother-in-law, being my personal favorite “This Feels Right”.
If you get the chance to attend one of Jeremy Shada’s concerts, go, I promise you won’t regret it! And be on the lookout for “Neon Dreams” sister album “Neon Nightmares” which Jeremy mentioned he is planning on releasing some singles coming out later this year.