College Tuition or Michael Bublé?

Wrapping his velvety voice around 9,000 fans at the Frank Erwin Center Sunday, Michael Bublé made good on the promise of a night filled with romance. Sliding downstage at 8:30pm, the Canadian crooner kicked off a two-hour production with pyrotechnics. All manner of females shivered in his wake.

Red River’s basketball arena was the last stop on this 18-month tour, named for the crooner’s eighth album, To Be Loved, so the routine arrived as polished as his gleaming shoes. It can’t be as easy as it looks. Bublé’s grandmother Yolanda died last week at 83, but the performer hasn’t missed a beat.

The 38-year-old waded into the crowd after the second song, crowd favorite “Haven’t Met You Yet,” for selfies with fans. One sign read “College tuition & floor tickets got us in debt.” The singer pressed them to reveal how much the tickets cost.

“Two-hundred and sixty-five dollars each?” he exclaimed. “Holy shit, really?”

Don’t misjudge Bublé for an Eagle Scout. The raunchy stage banter fits him better than his tux.

“Let yourselves go,” he insisted. “If things go well, by the end of it we’ll all be having dirty sex in a car.”

Michael Bublé Sunday at the Frank Erwin Center: “If things go well, by the end of it we’ll all be having dirty sex in a car.” (Photo by Gary Miller)

The singer’s lisp bubbled to the surface during Van Morrison’s “Moondance,” making for a loose rendition, but it had no impact on the energy in the stands. The skirts of all the summer dresses whipped around with every note. Screens rose from the stage and undulated behind him as he belted Frank Sinatra hit “Come Dance With Me.”

During another Van Morrison number, “Crazy Love,” hundreds of phone flashlights illuminated the auditorium. Taking a breath, Bublé joked, “You don’t even know how much it means to me that you would waste your phone battery like that.”

Setting off the third act of the performance, the gentleman stylist dialed it back a year with a cover of Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” joined onstage by his openers, a capella group Naturally 7. In a show with so much emphasis on vocals, the versatile NYC crew are the perfect match for the pop star, joining him for Motown twofer “Who’s Loving You” by the Jackson 5 and beefing up the Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg.”

The three-song encore began with “Cry Me a River,” the last traces of heart-shaped confetti from “All You Need is Love” swirling in the air. At the end of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You,” Bublé quieted the crowd to belt sans mic. Afterward, his fans doubtlessly filed out on legs of jelly.

Frank Erwin Center set-list, 8.3.14

1) “Fever”
2) “Haven’t Met You Yet”
3) “Try a Little Tenderness”
4) “You Make Me Feel So Young”
5) “Moondance”
6) “Come Dance With Me”
7) “Feeling Good”
8) “I’ve Got the World On a String“
9) “Everything”
10) “That’s All”
11) “Crazy Love”
12) “Home”
13) “Get Lucky”
14) “Who’s Loving You”
15) “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”
16) “To Love Somebody”
17) “All You Need is Love”
18) “Burning Love”
19) “It’s a Beautiful Day”

ENCORE

20) “Cry Me a River”
21) “Save the Last Dance for Me”
22) “A Song for You”