Arkansas Times Article

The King of Arkansas Returns!! LOL
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Excerpts:

Two and a half months ago, Kris Allen returned to Arkansas a star. We welcomed him with red carpets, widespread truancy, high-pitched screams, homemade signs, a town-sized parade and round-the-clock news coverage. And that was before he became the latest “American Idol.” So go ahead and count on pandemonium on Saturday, as the newly christened Verizon Arena welcomes Kris back to Arkansas for the first time since he became the state's biggest pop star since, well, ever?

But as you can see from the tour set list on the right, it's going to be a long wait before Kris takes the stage. Once he's there, lucky for us, his set will be exponentially less tedious than it was when the tour started. “No Boundaries,” the so-called “coronation song” that he sang at the show's end (written in part by “Idol” judge Kara DioGuardi, with lyrics of “climbing mountains” and “weathering hurricanes” and other treacle-y nonsense), has been removed from his set. This after tepid audience response and reviews that branded it things like “a set killer.” It's been replaced by “All These Things I've Done” by the Killers, a great anthem of inner conflict, with at least one fitting lyric: “I need direction to perfection / No, no, no!”

Speaking of direction, Allen's young career appears to be taking shape. Amidst prepping for the tour, singing the national anthem at the NBA Finals, dealing with questions about his “bromance” with Adam Lambert and Tweeting about eating 14 plums, the Conway native's been working, steadily, on his fall debut on 19 Recordings/Jive Records. So far, he's collaborated with Joe King of the Fray (at Timbaland's Virgina Beach studio) and, according to Billboard, received material from David Hodges (Kelly Clarkson, Daughtry), Salaam Remi (Nas, Amy Winehouse, Al Green) and Claude Kelly (Akon, Leona Lewis). Kris told the magazine he expects the end product to compare to the sounds of Jason Mraz and John Mayer, with a possible trace of an urban sound.