Surely, there is something wrong with Nigerians. Our ability to keep quiet in the face of obvious maltreatment amazes me. No, this is not about politics, it is about the Lauryn Hill Concert which took place yesterday night / this morning. I know its odd for one to go out with the intention of having a relaxing night out, only to wake up worried about our psyche as a nation. It seems that we have finally become experts at never challenging the status quo even when our money and obvious discomfort is involved. Let me start from the very beginning.
In April this year, when the show was first advertised, I was very interested in seeing Lauryn Hill perform and was quite disappointed that neither she nor her band were able to make the show. If I remember well, the reasons given by Lauryn had something to do with the inability of the promoters to secure proper flight arrangements for herself and the band and there were also some whispers that it was an Arik problem, but one is not sure which was the real reason. (I doubt it could be the Arik one because no serious organiser would decide to use Arik, the reigning king of cancelled flights for such an important event or would they?). Anyway, the news of Lauryn’s inability to attend mysteriously filtered out on Linda Ikeji’s Blog on the day of the May show at about 5.30p.m when quite a few people were all dolled up and ready. Many hoped it was a hoax but it was true.
No Lauryn, but the show went on without it’s major act. After all in showbiz, the show must always go on. Bovi did a fabulous job of keeping the crowd entertained and we all went home kinda okay albeit disappointed. I refuse to comment on the musical performances at that last show because it was just one kind and I really do not want to go there. The organisers convinced us that Lauryn would be re-invited and that we should keep our tickets and some people did. I was one of such believers.
So when I heard Lauryn would finally make an appearance this August, I was happy to say ntoii to the naysayers who had scoffed that I had lost my money to Nigerian Promoters and went for the show, certain that this time around, the show would be better organised. Little did I know. My observations of the event are as follows:
TICKETS:
Like I said, I had earlier purchased tickets and was curious about the claim that I would be able to re-use them. I was able to BUT (of course there was a but), I made a loss. You see, the former ticket categories and the ones for this show were not exactly the same. For the May Show, they had tickets for Standard -N10,000, Couples VIP – N40,000, Couples VVIP – N100,000 and Tables for N1.2m. For this August show, for reasons best known to the organisers, the ticket categories were different. It was now Standard – N10,000, VIP – N35,000, Table 1- N750,000, Table 2 – N1.5m.
Somehow, it seemed like the pricing had stylishly gone up – just do the math, apart from the standard ticket which was same price, the VIP which was 20k a piece had gone up to 35k and so on. So, the former ticket pricing and the new ones just did not jive. Why did the pricing change? Did they have to pay more for the hall or the champagne that graced some tables? Did Lauryn demand for more money or was this an attempt to absorb and cover the moneys that must’ve been lost in the last venture? Or perhaps Emefiele of CBN and his forex policies had stung the organisers too.
Another point to note, while it is was possible to re-use your old tickets, some people did it at a loss. E.g if you had a couple’s VVIP ticket from the last show which was 100k, at this show you only get a VIP pass which is equal to 70k amounting to a loss of 30k. For what na? Moral of the long story, buy the cheapest tickets and always, always cash out in the event of a cancelled show. In fact, fight for your money, there is no shame in it, it is your hard earned money!
Plus, are there any regulating agencies that monitor shows in this country? The prices are getting quite ridic!
THE WAIT TIME:
For a show that was to have had its Red Carpet open at 6.pm, the show did not start until 11.30 p.m because they claimed they were doing soundcheck. We kept hearing things like – give us 30 minutes more, the show would soon start. Like play, like play, we were there for hours on end. Worse still, people were not even allowed to enter the hall for a seat/soft music as most were left to stand and loiter around Eko Hotel & Suites – thank goodness for the numerous bars at in the hotel. My heartfelt apologies to our high heel wearing ladies.
As an aside, a little birdie told me – and this is unconfirmed – that payment for the hall was not effected until sometime very late yesterday evening when the crowds had already started arriving. The funniest part of it all was that not one person went to complain about the wait or the fact that one’s plane would have landed in London for the amount of wait time incurred. It’s okay sha, we are gentle Nigerians and God will always fight for us abi?. Many companies must have paid the price of non productive workers due to lack of sleep. The show ended at around 3.30 am on a Monday Morning! Shio.
DJ, COMEDIAN & ARTISTE LINE UP:
Now what better authority to give information on the line up of stars than the official twitter handle of the show (@maydayliveng)? So, after consistently reading their tweets, we were sure that DJ Jimmy Jatt himself would grace the wheels of steel. In fact, last night, there was a DJ table lit up with Jimmy Jatt’s name, but we never saw him on stage, at least, the man I saw at the wheels of steel was definitely not Jimmy (except he has gone through some facial reconstruction sha).
They had also promised us Basket Mouth as MC and when I saw him around the premises, I was happy. Imagine my surprise when it was Sexy Steel and Vina who appeared on stage only once! No Basket Mouth! Nigerians might have managed Sexy Steel who came out first but Vina, naaaah. She made matters worse by trying to apologise along the lines of ‘you know this is Africa’ and people shut her up! The crowd hallad for the first time and my hopes were raised but it fell flat again when the artiste line up came along and everyone kept quiet again. Oh, there was a feeble attempt as saying ‘we want Lauryn’, but it didn’t last for thirty seconds sef.
Where @maydayliveng had confirmed that the likes of BankyW, Tuface, Sound Sultan, as part of their Artiste Line up, we did not even smell their shadows, not to talk of seeing them! Many of the start up artistes were really bad (and that is putting it mildly), I mean isn’t there an industry standard for entry levels? The biggest Nigerian stars that performed were Victoria Kimani and Tekno. Then there was this guy called Dil, who decided he would sing Ed Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud’ and made an absolute muck of it! The Rachel Kerr lady from the UK can sing but even she went off key in more than a few places. Did someone say soundcheck had been done?
LAURYN HILL’S PERFORMANCE:
Now, to the performance of the day! Lauryn came on stage at 1.20 a.m and as far as I know, she brought it! I think she had issues with the sound because she kept complaining and asking that something be adjusted, but to my untrained ears, that voice, the back up, lights and all were fantastic. The initial reception was lukewarm when she began with three little known songs, but as soon as she went into the oldies and the goodies, the crowd picked up. She must’ve sang about fourteen songs in all, she even threw in a good dose of good ol’ Bob Marley! To be honest, I lost count of the number of songs she did (hey, being an observer does not mean I should not enjoy myself na!). She was the saving grace of a concert gone bad in the hands of shoddy organisation!
One more thing though, what was that outfit she was wearing? It reminded me of our colonial pasts, but then you know me, I can overthink things.
I would rate the show a 6/10 which is due to the hard work Lauryn put in. Otherwise…
****I think the same show could have been done at a reasonable hour. This I am here attitude act like they are doing the people a favor just to show up. I bet this would/will not happen t Martha Vineyard invite or UK for that mater. Look the Emperor does not have on any clothes people.