Tonéx, because I still have trouble calling him anything else, is the most vocally gifted Homo sapiens alive. This Tonéx vocal performance is my evidence.
Don’t worry. That’s correct. Sapiens is singular. It’s Latin, not English.
There may be someone living in a cave somewhere who is better and whom none of us knows about, but it’s not even worth mentioning.
So, I’m not sure why I did.
I digress.
Peep game as Tonéx vocally massages an entire crowd, then karate chops their mental in this video clip that surfaced on YouTube today.
Tonéx Turns the Crowd Into Part of the Performance
What makes this work is not simply that Tonéx can sing notes most people would need written permission to attempt.
Plenty of singers have range. Fewer have the control to move around inside a song without making every run sound like an athletic event.
Tonéx has that control.
He also understands something that gets lost when people reduce singing to hitting difficult notes: A great vocalist can change the entire feeling of a room.
That is what happens here. The crowd is not merely watching a singer perform. Tonéx pulls everybody into the arrangement and then starts playing with what the room gives back.
At that point, trying to separate singer, band and audience becomes increasingly useless.
Range Is Only Part of It
The impressive part of a Tonéx vocal performance has never been range alone.
It is the combination of range, tone, timing, improvisation and an apparently unreasonable level of confidence in whatever his voice decides to do next.
That last part is important.
There are singers who sound spectacular when every note has been carefully arranged. Then there are singers who seem capable of wandering away from the arrangement, building another one for a few seconds and returning without anybody having to send a search party.
Tonéx belongs to the second group.
So does this prove he is literally the greatest living vocalist?
Yes.
Unless cave guy finally gets Wi-Fi.