Glow in the Dark concert review

I have seen more concerts in my lifetime than I could ever begin to recall, and I have seen many huge rap concerts inside of Arco Arena, but I was extra excited to see this show that consisted of Lupe Fiasco, N.E.R.D, Rhianna and Kanye West. Until Friday night I had not seen a big arena sized concert in quite a few years and I was missing the big spectacle concert. And, I knew Kanye West was going to give me that spectacle. I mean, he has the biggest ego in the world, how could his show not be massive? All of this excitement came to a full explosion Friday night for one of the most entertaining concerts I have ever been to. On top of all of that, the concert only started 5 minutes late, which is unheard of in a rap concert!

Lupe Fiasco- At 7:05, The lights went dark and I hurried Liz and myself to our seats because I knew Lupe was first (Thanks for the Myspace Bulletin heads up Lupe!). No new rapper has completely won me over this much since Eminem did it in 1998. Lupe came out and performed "Hello Goodbye" which is probably his most surreal song. It sounds like the end of the world is coming and he is on acid. That is the best way I can describe the song. It is just Lupe and his D.J. and none of the monitors. He has a crazy energy and runs all over the stage managing to keep his breathing under control, which is imperative for a rapper who raps at the quick speeds like Lupe. He does 4 songs from the new album and then goes right into "Kick Push" and while the house was not full yet, the second he hit the opening lines of that song. the crowd was in full eruption. He went through 3 songs from album number 1 and then went into a very funny, Vegas style version of "Tokyo, Paris" while his back up singers got in place. My only problem with this song was the girl singing over sang her run at the end, but the crowd totally bought into it, so that was cool. Lupe did some banter with the audience but mostly he was there to set the tone for the night and when he wrapped up with the combination of "Superstar" and a dizzingly fast and hype version of Daydream, he sent the now full crowd into quite a huge frenzy. I would say Lupe did his job, but now I need to see him again as the a headliner in a smaller venue. I think his songs, dealing a lot in social ills, are kind of lost in the massive setting and with only a 30 minute set he didn't get as many songs in as I would have liked.

After Lupe, when the lights came on, I started to look around and I noticed a trend- Girls really like to dress slutty at concerts; It is like Halloween, but without the themes to the sluttiness. Of course, this is not a complaint for the most part. I mean half the girls looked amazing all slutified, but it is the other half that concerned me. This other half looked like rejects from Flavor of Love, Rock of Love or a Shot at love with Tila Tequila. The trick is to only look at the hot sluts. Luckily I have a lot of experiences determining between the two. After 30 minutes of slut watching and listening to that god awful Snoop Dogg, Sensual seduction song, N.E.R.D was ready.

N.E.R.D- These guys blasted onto the stage with a new song that was so drum heavy, I thought my ears were going to pop and start bleeding. The first time Pharrell was shown on the big screen the girls at the arena united for a giant orgasmic like scream and he seemed to revel in it, who wouldn't! The group did not waste a whole lot of time talking to the audience, but they were kind enough to let us know when they were going to play songs off the album coming out in June. The 3 new songs all sounded amazing and I cannot wait to pick up their new album. My favorite new song is called "Everybody nose" and I think it comes in at 120 beats per minute, which is insane live and I was totally rocking out to it. They played "Brain", "Rock Star" and a very kick ass version of "Lap Dance" but off the second album they only played "She Likes to Move". Towards the end of that song. it sounded like Pharrell's voice was giving out and the set ended rather abruptly, without anyone saying good night and it made me wonder if Pharrell did real damage to his vocal chords. Even with that abrupt ending, N.E.R.D put on a very rocking, rollicking show and I was impressed with how Pharrell is not afraid to blend into a group, even though he is actually a huge star in the world of hip-hop.

When the lights came back on, I went back to people watching and reflecting. The usual big rap show has a lot of weed; this show did not. Usually the rapper on stage are encouraging the lighting up int he theater, but none of the guys here were doing that. I was also noticing that I didn't see anyone who appeared to be over the age of 30 there. It was a diverse group, racially, but age wise everyone seemed to be within the 16-28 age group. I was also noticing that, for girls, shorts have become an acceptable form of dressing up. As long as you wear heels with them, it seems like they are perfectly acceptable as something other than just casual wear.

Rhianna- To be honest, this was the part of the night I was not entirely thrilled to watch, but I knew it was coming. Her set up was pretty basic except the glowing "R" in the middle of the stage, but the crowd response to her was awesome. She appeared on stage in a very sexy, black body suit outlined with hot pink and she had on hot pink gloves and looked incredibly sexy. But, I knew she would; it was the singing I was unsure of. However, as she tore through single after single, she held her own pretty well. She did kind of derail the energy of the show with 3 ballads, but the crowd did not seem to mind much. Half way through she changed outfits into this yellow and black number with a sexy hat, but the outfit blended too well with the back up dancers and back up singers for my taste. Rhianna was the most chatty of the bunch, telling us who wrote the songs she sang and what they meant to her. She is very playful on stage and while she is not the best dancer out there, she moves in a way that is pleasant to my eyes. Because she has an album chalk full of singles, she didn't need to worry about singing a song no one knew, and by the time she reached the climax with "Umbrella" the girls in the audience were screaming at decibels I thought would shatter windows.

I knew we were in for a long wait after Rhianna because I read a review of opening night and they said it was about 45 minutes between Rhianna and Kanye West. Liz and I chatted it up most of the time, but I did put in a call to work to find out the fate of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was my pick and I needed a win badly. That is my justification. That obnoxious Snoop song played again leading me to explain to Liz why new Snoop makes me sad because he used to be so good. Now he just sucks. If you like "Sensual Seduction (Which is really called sexual eruption)" don't bother defending it. Actually don't bother talking to me again. I was having trouble waiting because I was excited at the prospect of Kanye, Lupe and Pharrell holding down the stage together. The 3 have formed a group and in my head this was the perfect coming out party.

Kanye West- When the curtain finally raised on Kanye West, it was almost exactly how I envisioned it. Kanye was in the middle of a raised stage, laying down taking in the screams from his adoring public. His show was sci-fi themed and very cinematic. The plot? Kanye is on a space ship that has crash landed on another planet and he is trying to find a way to get back to Earth. He opens with "Good Morning" which I find to be an odd choice because it is not the hype machine artists usually open with. Of course, Kanye West doesn't do anything usual. It takes a couple songs to get the audience fully behind him, but when he goes into "Through the Wire" he has all of us totally with him. Everyone was standing up and remained standing for the entire 85 minute set. And for the entire 85 minutes it was just us and Kanye. His drum heavy band stood in a pit below him and he did not share the stage with anyone. It is Kanye's night; it is Kanye's show and we are all just worshippers at the temple of West. The show hits monumental highs no less than 4 times- "Gold Digger", "Stronger", "Jesus Walks" and "The Good Life". The latter featured a very extended ending, where Kanye worked everyone into such a frenzy I feel like he extended it longer than he had planned because of how crazy the crowd was going for it. However, there was also something deeper going on and it came to a head when Kanye went into the incredibly touching new version of "Hey Mama" that he wrote after his mother passed last year. With a beautiful yet haunting Capella start singing this amazing line "Last night I saw you in my dreams, Now I can't wait to go to sleep" and ending similarly with "This life, is all a dream, an my real life starts when I go to sleep" Kanye delivered the entire song on one knee looking down and making me completely believing he was truly lost in himself at that moment. Next he let Journey's "Don't stop believing" while he sat off to the side thinking about his mother. However, he was not done. His spaceship just needed the brightest light, or the biggest shining star and of course that is Kanye Himself. After about a minute of cool visual effects and a lifted up stage, Kanye was back on Earth and ended the show with a rousing rendition of "Tocuh the Sky."

When the show was over I was immensely satisfied, but felt kind of cheated because I was dying to see Lupe, Kanye and Pharrell together, but I was not totally surprised it didn't happen. Kanye was not about to share the stage with anyone. For 85 minutes it was just him and his microphone. He danced, yelled, got hype and pumped the crowd up without ever really looking at us or talking to us. The show was tightly paced and Kanye was the ring master. A lot of people hate Kanye West because of his ego or how he whines at award shows, but his point is that the world need him. The world needs people who actually say what they feel. I may not buy that premise entirely, but in terms of rap music, we do need Kanye West. he, like Jay-Z, Bridges the gap of critical and chimerical success. People do not want to admit it, but rap music would be completely in the toilet without him. I truly believe that and he proved that tonight. Every single person in that arena loved the entire show. Everyone was out of breath, with sore legs the next day. I 100& spazzed out. It is not something anyone really sees from me these days, as I am a pretty reserved person, but if you ever want to see me just completely lose control, take me to a great rap show. it is euphoric for me and for nearly 5 hours on Friday night, I was in a state of absolute euphoria!