AIR SUPPLY, Deer Valley Amphitheater, Saturday.
DEER VALLEY — Thirty years and almost as many albums later, Air Supply still has the final word on love and romance. And they can still sell out wherever they play.
Saturday, Air Supply played its first gig with the Utah Symphony at the Deer Valley Amphitheater. The venue was packed with enthusiastic crowd members who knew all the words to every song that Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock sang in their hourlong set.
Their concert at Deer Valley was one of the few that Air Supply has played in Utah. Surprising because, even though Russell and Hitchcock met in Australia and had their first big success there, they have strong connections to Utah. Russell has made his home in Summit County for the past decade, while keyboardist Jed Moss and bass guitarist Johnny Lightfoot both live in Salt Lake City. Only Hitchcock and drummer Mike Zerbe live outside the state.
The hour that Air Supply was onstage — backed by the strings of the Utah Symphony, which was led by associate conductor Scott O'Neil — was a hit fest that sent the audience into bursts of frenzied excitement. It was non-stop entertainment that explored the joy, and also the pain, of being in love.
Anyone who has followed Air Supply over the years has a favorite song, and Russell and Hitchcock kept everyone happy tossing out hit after hit. "Even the Nights Are Better," "Two Less Lonely People in the World," "Every Woman in the World," "Chances" and "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All" were just some of the songs that the duo sang, superbly backed by Moss, Lightfoot, Zerbe and the symphony strings.
On "Here I Am," one of the group's early hits, Russell and Hitchcock worked the audience, waving and shaking hands. At one point, a woman in the audience Hitchcock was singing to thrust out a cellphone and he sang into that, too.
Once back onstage, the two encouraged the audience to sing along, which they did more than willingly. At the end of the number, Russell told audience members they were "impeccable." Russell and Hitchcock also sang their first No. 1 single "Lost in Love." They ended their set with "All Out of Love," their follow-up hit single to "Lost in Love."
The crowd wanted more, not content with the dozen or so songs the group played. But with the kind of response Air Supply received Saturday, it's probably a safe bet that they'll be returning here again.
Before Air Supply took the stage, O'Neil and the entire Utah Symphony did a warm-up act, entertaining the audience with some popular classical pieces.
O'Neil and the symphony started things rolling with "Adventures on Earth," from John Williams' score to the film "E.T." They followed that with a large excerpt from the slow movement of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2.
The "Can-Can" section of Offenbach's overture to "Orpheus in the Underworld" and the "Bacchanale" from Saint-Saen's opera "Samson and Delilah" closed out their set.
During the "Can-Can," O'Neil did a few leg kicks while conducting, to the obvious delight of the audience.
E-mail: ereichel@desnews.com