6 posts tagged “concert”

I highly enjoyed Chrisette Michelle's performance as part of the "Art of Love Tour" with Solange and Raheem Devaughn. The concert was on Friday at the Anaheim HOB and the crowd was small but dedicated. Mostly women and couples but it seemed like everyone knew every word to every song. Chrisette graciously sang just about every song on her album plus covered a Diana Ross classic. She's not a tiny girl so I was impressed by her style of clothing. She had on tight skinny jeans a white tank and cute jacket. If you have heard her album, seen her videos or seen her perform live, you know that she is unique and a definite breath of fresh air at a time when most Hip Hop and R&B is garbage. Her energy was great and she performed with a great live band that made the experience that much more amazing.

If you don't have her album, do yourself a favor. Treat yourself to her current album in stores now entitled "I Am".Also check out my thoughts on her album below in a previous blog.

Solange opened the show and was suprisingly good. She definitely has grown up and looked very cute in a little pink puffy prom looking dress with background dancers. Her voice sounds good and she seems to be doing a good job of differentiating herself from Beyonce.

We didn't stay for Raheem. Not a big fan, I mostly was interested in seeing Chrisette live and she didn't disappoint. If you have nothing to do tonight, you can catch this concert at the HOB on Sunset

Last night was the Alicia Keys "As I Am" tour at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Let me break it down the way I usually do.....

Venue: The Honda Center is nice, clean and had great audio. The staff seemed really friendly so no complaints there. Plus there was great food options at the concession stand like Ruby's where I could get a real hot fudge sundae. What a great place to allow you to eat a hot fudge sundae and watch a concert. I ignored the fact that it was a contributor to the muffin top.

Crowd/Audience: Not too bad for this concert. It was truly a mixed crowd with different races and ages. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the concert and there wasn't any drama or fear that some guys in white tee's would be fighting afterwards LOL

Jordin Sparks: She was cool. I don't think she really got the crowd into her performance as much as she could and she is getting a little thick. Thicker than a snicker actually. She may want to spend a little more time with the trainer on the tour. Her voice sounded really good though and while her set was simple, she did a pretty good job for being the first real act for the night.

Ne-Yo: Great. I have seen him perform live before and he always does a great job. He had some provocative dancers though, but after a few songs my guess that they were strippers went away and I could see that they had some professional training in them. Ne-Yo played all the great hits and kicked his set off with his new single. Shameless plug... he also announced his album will be out next month. Definitely one that I will buy the Tuesday that it is out.

Alicia: She was great. Very classy, sexy but conservative and allowed her true talent (not dropping it like it's hot or rollin' around on the floor or bringing a guy up on the stage to gyrate on) to come out. She played a lot of songs on her piano which was nice and her voice was amazing. We had great seats so we were able to see everything (thank God the crowd stayed seated for most of the show). She rocked that cute Farrah Fawcett hairstyle that she has going right now and gave a really good, classic show.

To find out where Alicia will be next. Check out Alicia Keys Events

So yesterday while sitting at work and working hard (as if I do anything else) my friend calls and asks if I want to go to the Glow In The Dark Tour. I of course say yes and I'm glad I did. This show was 100 times better than the Heart of the City show.

The concert was at the Nokia Center which was smaller and more intimate than the Hollywood Bowl. The crowd was soooo young and predominantly Asian but everyone was respectful in the crowd and 100 % about the music.

Now to the acts...

We walked in while Lupe was on stage. His set was basic since he was first but his energy was impressive. I thought all the teeny-boppers were there to see him b/c they knew every word.

Then N.E.R.D came out (Pharrell could get it, LOL) and they too had a basic set but completely identified with the crowd and even incited a potential riot by telling fans to ignore security and jump out in the aisles. They played their hits plus a new song that was cool. I ended up meeting another friend in the lobby for a drink. This probably was the closest I have been to a Rave.

Next up was Rihanna. She really was in tune with her Rock side. Her outfits were cute and she sang most of her hits. It would have been nice to see Dream or Ne-Yo come out and surprise the crowd but she held it down. Her hair cut is continuing to look boy-ish. She reminded me of Tinker-bell/Peter Pan but her energy and vocals were on point. Being the only lady on the tour must be hard so she made sure the ladies in the audience got to sing their couple of  "Guys ain't S*it" songs since all the other guys on the tour were belting out lyrics about their hoes and getting brain.

After a substantial delay, Kanye came to the stage and the reason for the delay was obvious in his elaborate stage set up. It was set up as if he had landed on some planet and during the show he interacted with his female digitized voice rocket. Kanye's energy superseded that of all the previous performers and left Jay-Z's Heat of the City Tour performance in the dust. He was full on sweating and definitely left a part of himself on that stage.

Kanye sang a tribute to his mom and Lupe came back out towards the end to perform a song with him. Then when leaving, the ushers were handing out a book that I browsed through. It's like a self help book that Kanye apparently wrote with some other author in that genre but in honor of his mom. It seemed like it was done in an effort to show his mom that he completed a book and was able to share with his fans the lessons of life that he had learned. Great take away gift.

At the end of the show I realized that the actual glow in the dark effects weren't as prominant as I expected but the meaning of the tour seemed to be for us individually to glow in the dark or be our brightest and overcome in times of hardship, struggle and darkness. Kudos to you Kanye.

Last night was the much anticipated heart of the city tour at the Hollywood Bowl. The hottest ticket around, the opportunity to see hip hop and R&B in a rare venue. In getting the tix and preparing to go I'm thinking it's going to be a more top notch crowd and the vibe would be mostly upscale right? WRONG!

I thought I was at a Lil' Wayne concert featuring Pit bull. The amount of hood fab dudes in white tees was deplorable. How do these dudes even know where the Hollywood Bowl is? Then of course you have all the radio station winners in the front (nice crowd) and a bunch of older white soccer moms with their pre-teen daughters. What? Not only do these moms and kids not have any knowledge of Jay and Mary's importance to the music game, they were dancing off beat. To top it all off, the whole night was thrown off by the Jay-Z wanna-be's who thought they knew every word and performed the actual show themselves in their seats. So that's my take on the crowd. Overall I would give it a 6.

Mary's performance was amazing. Her energy level, fashion, swagger and voice were top notch and she definitely gave LA her all. Overall score for Mary - 9.5 (there's always room for improvement)

Now, let's get to Jay. He waisted our time by bringing Memphis Bleek out (please Jay, you can't always help the hood). Then he wouldn't event perform key hits. He messed around at the DJ booth and gave snippets of songs the crowd obviously wanted to hear but then moved on without performing them at all. His husbandly swagger was on point but he definitely didn't show up in the ways that I have seen him show up and show out for other concerts. Overall score for Jay - 6

I wish they would have performed more together. The set was nice and the venue did an amazing fire work show for the last song which I'm sure won't be happening for many of their shows. So all in all. It was a good night but I know Jay could have done better.

Check out video from them doing a duet on tour

You know I gotta blast it once I know I have my tickets, LOL. How happy was I to see that Chrisette Michelle was coming to LA. If you haven't heard her album you are sleeping on real music. Check out her myspace page to hear songs from her new album "I AM" in stores now.

Now as far as Raheem, he's a little hood fab for me. I don't really care too much for his new single but I have yet to listen to the rest of the album sitting on my desk. I'm sure he will give a great performance but he's confusing me with the braids. He has them in some pictures and then he has it cut right on the album cover. I'm sorry brotha's, braids just are not the look. You see how Luda, Jermaine Dupri, Xzibit, and Bow Wow chopped theirs off. Keep it corporate fellas, the thug look was so 1990's. But I digress.....

Check out Chrisette Michelle and Raheem Devaughn in LA May 23rd and 25th at the HOB. Click here for more info.

Between high mortgage and rent costs, gas and a sista getting her hair done EVERY week, living in LA is expensive enough without figuring out how to pay for "fun time". Check out these great sites/newsletters that offer Angelinos discounted prices for great things to do and buy in LA and other great cities.

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