OK, here comes my review:
I just returned home and read thorugh most of the reviews posted on several boards and I have to say I am really surprised.
I showed up at the venue at around 6:15 and doors were just about to open. Only few people were standing in line (about 50 maybe) so I felt quite lucky. I managed to get to the front row which wasn’t really to difficult because there weren’t many people to begin with! Most people arrived between 7:30 and 8:00 pm – the concert was supposed to start at 8 pm. So I waited since 6:30 in the main hall and was enjoying the company of a friend who I hadn’t seen in quite a time- so time flew by for me. They played music from CD – some Bob Marley tunes and stuff… unfortunately they ran out of songs pretty quickly so they replayed the same songs over and over again which got quite annoying after a while- especially since they played that Riahanna tune about 6 times! I was about to go crazy!!! At around 7: 30 people already began to stand up…
at 8:20 a guy showed up on stage apologizing for the delay. He said there have been some technical problems and they are trying to fix it to give us the best show possible. (However I didn’t see many people fixing anything – maybe backstage… WTF. It did sound like a fake-ass apology but fact is: we don’t know for sure!)
He was booed off stage. At around 9 the DJ began playing some tracks – while people were giving him a hard time. I guess they thought this was just a sort of filler because the sound wasn’t fixed yet or the band wasn’t ready… anyway. I thought the DJ was quite good and at the end of the set people were pretty much cheering for him. You could really feel the excitement of the people at that point because everyone was feeling either it is gonna start now or its cancelt…But then there was this voice from the off saying: “Come on DJ LEON run that track…” and Wyclef came on stage beginning the show with “JUMP JUMP” – people went crazy! Then he told us the story of him getting busted by german police that someone else has already mentioned… and he said something about smoking marijuahana (like he did a couple of times during the show). Then he sang a speeded up version of “No, Woman, No Cry” which was pretty cool. After that PRAS entered the stage and they had this little conversation… Clef was like “Yo, I thought we go beef man…?!” And soon after that Lauryn Hill entered the stage…(I know you people want to know what she looked like – don’t even front): wearing high heel boots, a dark-purple sweat pants, that dark blue sailor shirt, a leather jacket partly covered by fur, lots of bling bling (LOTS!), and a big ass afro (NO WIG! And that’s for sure!) She sure looked like a diva but didn’t act like one! I don’t know where the people were standing who claimed she had the diva attitude – sure not in the first row. Because then they would have seen that she smiled a lot! She was constantly dancing and moving around and seemed to enjoy the show. To me she did not look like someone who was about to cancel the show. Many times she came to the front of the stage singing to the people in the front, smiling. She bend over to the people nodding her head back and forth – that huge afro was swinging like mad!
Lauryn Hill was very hyped indeed. She did not stand still one second. Her raps were pure fire… her flow was sick. The whole show was hyped… maybe a bit too much. Most of the songs of the Score were rearnged and speeded up. They rapped verses over different samples and also reranged some hooks… Lauryn did the screaming-singing most of the time which obviously didn’t work with the acoustics… It was just too noisy. I would have wished for a few more quit moments during the show where she would just show her singing skills as well. Nevertheless her voice was strong. I remember at one point, right before Doo Wop she did a little acapella song (probably some old classic – some doo wop tune) and she was amazing! Wyclefs rapping was tight as well… Pras was a bit off. Most of the time he would just stand in the back while Clef and Lauryn did the show in the front… At one point he left the stage, came back few minutes later and looked mad stoned… did some crazy dancing and stuff. Nevertheless he did a great performance on Ghetto Supastar… Lauryns Background singers sang the hook on this one and did a great job… They were dancing like mad to that song. Lauryn and Wylcef made several references to HAMBURG… one time Lauryn was singing … “Hamburg, Hamburg...” as an intro to a song. She played LOST ONES, DOO WOP and EX-FACTOR – all three performed similar to the well-knowed recorded versions… same goes for the other solo songs 911 and PERFECT GENTLEMAN. During 911 Wyclef was singing with the background singers… they would go: “Sooo cold… so cold…” and Wyclef was making fun of it singing “Wie gehts… Wie geths?!” which is german for “Whats up” and the background singers repeated it obviously without a clue what it means. They had a funny look on their faces!
OK, I will shorten this up now because the rest of the performance was similar to the other shows… I just want to give a short conclusion:
I can understand the frustration about the concert very well because the sound was just off! Aweful. But I also think it depends on where you stood. BUT: The performance of the three WAS NOT BAD AT ALL… I thought the show was very entertaining. I am not disappointed about the performance – only frustrated about the sound. PLUS: It is absolutely not true that Lauryn Hill had a diva attitude during the performance! As far as the rumor about her wanting to cancel is concerned: Cant say anyting about that because I havent heard anything about that until I came to the board.
Everything thats been said about the venue is true. There were only about 2000-3000 people. The floor was packed but the seats were 3/4 empty which was a BIG turnoff. I thought the vibe was ****ed up from the beginning... Tho, during the performance people WERE CRAZY indeed.
As far as the vibe within the Fugees is concerned: It changed - It changed a lot from back in the day. It is really hard to tell wheather or not they are still tight or if they are doing this just for the sake of the reunion. However, there was interaction between the members but you would also see members going on and off stage... Pras dissapeard for two songs... Lauryn as well. Maybe they didnt want to take away from the solo songs. I dont know.
All the frustration aside, pay some dues to the rapping skills presented at the show. What s more important else at a Hip Hop show than some nicely spitted verses!?
Just one more thing, yes, they did play a new tune… I guess it was a new song from the upcoming album – sure sounded nice. Though it was quite short because it was also used as an intro to another song…
OK, I might add more to this if somethings comes to my mind…