CONCERT PREVIEW
Austin Mahone
With Fifth Harmony, Shawn Mendes and Alex Angelo. 7 p.m. Sunday. $19.50-$65. Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park, 2200 Encore Parkway, Alpharetta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com.
Oh, to be an 18-year-old burgeoning superstar and a swoony idol to millions of teenage girls.
If that’s your life, and you’ve been on tour for more than a month in a rumbling bus that pulls into a city long enough for you to soundcheck, sign 300 posters for fans, meet and greet said fans, warm up your voice and perform a 16-song set, then it is understandable that this is your response when asked where you’re calling from:
“Honestly, I have no clue. I just woke up and have no idea where I am.”
So said Austin Mahone last week, a bit groggy in early afternoon and not super-chatty during a quick 10-minute call.
But the puppy-ish pop star behind the songs “Say Somethin’,” “Banga! Banga!” and “Mmm Yeah” (with pal Pitbull) is nonetheless polite as he recalls recently playing Atlanta during a post-Braves game concert.
The hard-core basketball fan — he’s a devotee of his hometown San Antonio Spurs — is noncommittal about baseball. “It’s cool. But I’m more of a basketball guy,” he says, confirming what 18 trillion young women (aka, his “Mahomies”) in the U.S. already know.
Mahone will make his third appearance in Atlanta this year on Sunday with a concert at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park in Alpharetta, which he said will have “more dancers, more smoke, more lights — everything is bigger and better.”
He’s sharing the bill with Shawn Mendes, Alex Angelo and Fifth Harmony, the quintet formed on the 2012 season of “The X Factor.” The all-female group just snagged the MTV “Artist to Watch” award at the August Video Music Awards — the same award Mahone won last year. It prompted his headlining “MTV Artist to Watch” tour earlier this year that brought him to the Tabernacle.
Mahone sold out that show and is now playing a mixture of theaters, arenas and amphitheaters as his career gradually ascends.
He might be only a few months into legal adulthood (he turned 18 in April), but Mahone has a five-year plan in place.
“I see myself doing what I’m doing now on a bigger scale,” he said. “I’m starting to sell out bigger venues, and I want to fill them around the world.”
He’s toured Japan and Europe a few times, and his management team is working on an inaugural trip to Australia.
“It’s crazy,” Mahone said of his overseas ventures. “I go over there and there are hundreds of people waiting at the airport. It’s really cool.”
Mahone is only four years removed from being a cute kid with a sweet voice posting videos on YouTube. Now he’s taken to commanding the stage in major venues and even throwing in an homage to a Texas hero during his set — a cover of George Strait’s “Check Yes or No.”
“It’s definitely a Texas thing. I grew up listening to him. He’s one of my favorite country artists,” Mahone said.
He also agrees that playing in the South brings a certain amount of familiarity.
“I feel like the South is the same everywhere,” Mahone said. “Everyone is really nice and there’s a great Southern hospitality.”
Certainly, then, he’ll know when he’s arrived in Atlanta.
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