There is a saying in Dutch that loosely translated says 'not even a donkey would hit its head twice' As this is now the second time this has happened to me and yes, I am the freaken DONKEY….so let this be a cautionary tale for you all.
Friday night (the night before the show) was awesome, we had great wine and cheese at a local place…..somewhere in the evening my wife mentioned that Usher was playing in Melbourne the following night, I thought in my slightly inebriated haze that that would be AWESOME to go to, and we subsequently booked tickets to the RnB Fridays live show in Melbourne. It was reasonably soon after that the wife noticed that Usher was not playing, as he had been at last year’s show, but she quickly assured me that nevertheless, she was it would be a fun evening fun no matter who played.
Friday night (the night before the show) was awesome, we had great wine and cheese at a local place…..somewhere in the evening my wife mentioned that Usher was playing in Melbourne the following night, I thought in my slightly inebriated haze that that would be AWESOME to go to, and we subsequently booked tickets to the RnB Fridays live show in Melbourne. It was reasonably soon after that the wife noticed that Usher was not playing, as he had been at last year’s show, but she quickly assured me that nevertheless, she was it would be a fun evening fun no matter who played.
It will
come as no great surprise that upon further investigation, the artists that
were to perform were not exactly up my ally. That being said, I was reasonably
keen to catch some of 50 Cent along with the Black Eyed
Peas.
The evening
rolled around and with one very excited wife, we headed to the venue.
SISQO
We arrived at
the back-end of the Sisqo set and in time for his greatest hit, “Thong song”. The
crowd seemed to be really enjoying it – all credit goes to the wife at this
point for knowing which song it was, as I had no idea. During our entry I had decided that I should
head to the bar and probably drink enough of the over priced drinks to enjoy
the evening. Sisqo must have been exhausted as he had to perform for a full 20
minutes, and for the record I think I spent more time in line for the bar than
Sisqo spent on stage.
BRANDY
Next out on
stage was Brandy. This was someone who I had heard of at least, and god damn it
she actually looked familiar. Sure, when I thought about why she looked
familiar it was because I remember seeing her CD’s for sale in the discount bin
back in the day.
I also found
it interesting that she dressed herself like she was going to a clown techno
color nightmare party. That aside, her infectious smile, braided hair and
excellent vocals made it
a very enjoyable performance.
JASON
DERULO
Now we were into the downhill straight of the big performers and next up was Jason Derulo. For a performer of this note, I decided to move seats so I could be more in front of the stage, obviously it was for a better view of the massive screens along with better sound and it didn’t hurt that I was now closer to the bar.Now whilst I don’t know much of Jason’s songs it was still a really enjoyable set. I mean he brings a stage presence and energy that is very impressive, he also brings dancers who are not strippers, but “they” do like to dance like strippers.
Towards the end of the set Jason did two things that got some attention. The first one was he sampled Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes and the second thing he did was he had worked so hard in his 35 minute set that he took off his shirt and the hordes of teenagers and older discerning women all lost their minds.
photo credit: RNB Fridays Live Facebook
50 CENT
Next up was
the first artist that I wanted to see, it would be Curtis James Jackson III
……yes ladies and gentlemen that is 50 Cent….a man who has worked with Eminem
and Dr. Dre, and at one point he was the second most wealthy Rapper behind Jay
Z, before he filed for bankruptcy.
50 (or
Fiddy to his mates) took the stage with a full band and hype team and right from
the get-go his stage presence was excellent and there felt like an aura around
him. He has the swagger and smile and along with that his banter with his posse
was a lot of fun. All up his stage presence was really good and you couldn’t
help but enjoy it.
When he
played Candy shop everyone was in seventh heaven, including me. I was surprised
how good it was with a full band.
The rapper
had plenty of nods to G-Unit along with a cover of “Smoke Weed” by Snoop Dog
and then “Is this Love” by Bob Marley which pleased the crowd to no end. My
memory of the final song was “Birthday” which was perfect and everything I
needed to hear!
Post show
social media went into meltdown when 50 tweeted and misspelt Melbourne
(tweeting Melbon). The world will never stop to surprise me, the guy managed to
lose hundreds of millions of dollars so what’s a couple of letters amongst
friends?
FATMAN
SCOOP
For anyone
who was following the RNB Fridays
tour press you would have noticed that Fatman Scoop was part MC, and
part performer. When he took the stage and busted out “Put Your Hands Up” the
crowd lost their minds. He was the ultimate hype man and a great extra for the evening’s
performance.
BLACK
EYED PEAS
The Black
Eyed Peas were next up, and they would not disappoint. They kicked things off with
“Let’s get it started” …..who would have thought, and that’s what they did!!
The song had everyone up off their feet and singing along. Next was “Boom Boom
Pow” and then “Pump it” and we were well into the greatest hits selection and
exactly what I wanted from them.
The middle
of the set was a bit of a filler but innoxious enough. Where the band played
some newer tracks and also sampled “Seven nation army” by the White Stipes
(which had now happened twice in the evening and made me wonder if it was an orchestrated
stunt of just a strange coincidence).
Lastly the
band also introduce the new “Fergie” in the band, and she was AWESOME.
Apparently she was a finalist in The Voice Philippines” and is an exceptional
addition to the group.
It was not
long before the band headed for the endzone playing “Where is the love” and
lastly “I’ve got a feeling” and we were done. I was left with a beaming smile
and a lot of love for the Black Eyed Peas.
Janet
Jackson
Lastly
would be Janet Jackson. She was deemed the headline act which via social media
would be hotly debated. What could not be debated was that Janet is without a
doubt one of the largest selling artist of all time.
Unfortunately,
in my mind I didn’t remember much difference between Paula Abdul and Janet, nor
could I name any of Janet’s songs. What I did remember was an array of other
things she had been involved with outside of music like “Good Times”,
“Diff’rent Strokes”, “Fame”, “Poetic Justice” and who could forget the “Nutty
Professor II”
Having
followed social media following the Perth show it was noted that Janet’s
performance had been subpar, someone had even noted that she had not been able
to even lip sync her own songs well enough. With all this in mind to say I had
set my expectations very low would be an understatement. And to be honest I
didn’t stay for anywhere near half the set and I feel like I watched enough.
What I hadn’t
expected was that as Janet danced and “sang” there were times that I was able
to catch a glimpse of her deceased and much maligned brother Michael and
clearly parts of the crowd were losing their minds for Janet as they did for
Michael back in the day. I left only a few songs into the performance and later
found out that she covered one of Michaels songs (in collaboration with Janet)
“Scream” and I can’t help but wonder if that would have actually worthwhile
seeing live.
I thought
from the little that I saw that Janet was actually pretty damn good and her
adoring fans were made happy for sure.
So, the
night for me had come to an end and what had I witnessed? It had been a
collection of artists who had at one point in time been top of their game. Are
they still all up there now, no. It was an enjoyable night and with the slight
aid of alcohol it was nearly worth 1/2 of the cost of admittance, that being
said I am sure my wife would have paid double the price of admittance as she
loved it all!
JV
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