I had the pleasure of getting a last minute ticket and chance to go see RnB and Soul singers Chrisette Michele and Musiq Soulchild perform live on Friday night! I was excited because they are two of my favorite artists and I've never heard them perform live. Read more of my review after the jump...
Chrisette Michele came out after the opening act (whose name I can't recall) and wore a green sequined dress with a blondish wig. I was slightly surprised, seeing as she went natural not too long ago, but she looked beautiful nonetheless. (I decided to ignore the fact that she kept touching her weave/wig the whole performance long and that she popped her tongue after every song like Shenenah) She performed "Be Ok" first followed by various hits from all of her albums. She sang my favorites, "If I Have My Way", "Blame It On Me", and "Golden." It was her unexpected rendition of Richard Smallwood's "Total Praise", however, that made her performance worthwhile. She did absolutely amazing and almost made some of the audience catch the holy ghost!
After a brief intermission, Musiq came out and performed a couple of his hits back-to-back. He sang (ad-libbed) "Half-Crazy", "Girlfriend", "Love", and "Don't Change" along with other hits B"eautiful" and "Buddy". With the exception of "Love", "Don't Change", and "Beautiful", I must admit that I was disappointed in his segment of the show. First of all, he did too much ad-libbing for me. I did not come to the concert for that. And that pointing the mic at the crowd ish was also annoying. You're the singer, so sing! Secondly, he sang too many of his hits at the beginning of his performance. He started doing some of his lesser known songs (that no one cared about) and got on this ATL hip hop tip for a minute to get the crowd into it. As a huge Musiq fan, I kept waiting for him to sing more of what he is known for after sitting through several head-scratching choices of songs. I understand him being the artist and wanting to show different sides of himself, but this was not the time. I could see if he had hits on top of hits like Stevie Wonder or someone. But if I wanted to see hip hop, I would have gone to a club to see T.I. or someone. I was disappointed that he ended the show on a O_o note. I mean, "143", "Who Knows", "Ms. Philadelphia", "Medicine"...
Despite my reservations, I think overall the show was pretty good. I would give it a B-. However, Musiq or whoever is on his team should work on his segment of the show and get the song selection and order together. Chrisette should be more in tune with her music than her hair. As an artist, there is a certain level of professionalism and star factor that you should have. By listening to her scat, I could tell she's studied artists like Anita Baker and Etta James but she lacked the stage presence that the legends uphold. I hate to compare her to Beyonce (but I couldn't help it with the long blond hair), but you would never catch her up onstage twirling her hair like a child. She COMMANDS the stage which separates her from a lot of her peers. I know they aren't in the same musical bracket, but they're both performers nonetheless.
Don't worry, I didn't go on a twitter rant during the show, lol. I tweeted that I enjoyed the show and Musiq even retweeted me. If you love RnB like I do, go to the show just to hear them sing live. Hopefully their performances get better. They both mentioned new albums coming out this year, so get ready for that!
No comments:
Post a Comment