LA Times has an interview with contestants and review of the kick off concert from the 2008 Idols Live Tour. Are you going to see the Idols in concert this summer?

David Archuleta looks ahead to singing to the giant crowd saying “I wonder what will be different?” and that he’s very interested in seeing how the audiences on each night will react differently to each of his songs. He says he is working on his stage banter, that he wants to express his gratitude, but worries that he will “come across as obnoxious.” When I tell him that “obnoxious” is the last thing anyone on Earth has ever called him, he gives me his trademark nervous giggle and says “I just doing want to seem fake.”   

When I ask him what it’s like when he encounters the screaming girls, he replies: “It’s a little weird.”  He tells of his recent trip to New York when he went to see the musical “Wicked,” and was recognized in the theater, which set off a bunch of people screaming. When he had to leave early, a crowd followed him out and surrounded his car. 

“This little girl asked me for a hug and she seemed OK,” he said. “She was very calm as everything.  So I hugged her, but as soon as she stepped away, she started screaming. It was weird.” 

When I ask him if it’s good weird or bad weird, he says: “Its just weird. I mean, I don’t get why people scream. I don’t  feel like I’ve done anything that people should scream about.”

When I ask him if he enjoys the attention, or thinks about getting a girlfriend now that he has so many interested in him, he shakes his head. “I think that’s the wrong way to get a girlfriend. Instead of looking for who should be my soulmate, I can’t just go out and look at a crowd and say, ‘I pick her.’ ”

When I ask him how at his age he became so committed to and serious about music instead of the more frivolous concerns of most youths, David gives an extremely touching answer that gets me more than a little choked up. Of singing, he tells me: “I’ve just always loved to do it.” 

He tells me how he’s never felt comfortable or natural at expressing himself in words and conversation, but that he learned early that with music he could make people understand what he was feeling and what was going on inside him.  “And you don’t even have to get the words right. If you sing they can connect with you,” he added.