Concert Review: Beyonce Did It Big For the Ladies

Last night I was once again part of one of Houston’s oldest traditions… I attended the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo. Now, those of you who aren’t from H-town or haven’t lived here that long are probably saying to yourself “Rodeo? Why would you want to go to the rodeo?” Well, I’m about to educate y’all. Not only is this a big fundraiser, real cowboy competin’, rope ‘em & ride ‘em competition, but they also have a concert every night. Over the years I have seen just about everyone including Brian McKnight, Alicia Keys, Luther Vandross, Mary J. Blige, Smokey Robinson & Boyz II Men. The rodeo has brought in an endless number of Grammy award winning artists of all genres over the past 50 years. Gotta luv it!

This was my 2nd time seeing Beyonce perform at the rodeo, my 3rd seeing her solo, & my 5th time if you count Destiny’s Child. So, I expected nothing but the best from her. And I’m happy to say she didn’t disappoint. The wardrobe color for the night was white which looked great. But there was one near wardrobe malfunction. There was a fan at the front of the stage that was there so her hair (well, whoever’s hair she had sewn onto her head) could blow in the wind. Well, Ms. Knowles almost had a Marilyn Monroe moment, but caught her dress just in time – lol.

The tightest & funniest part of the night was when Beyonce performed “Cater to You”. They actually pulled someone out of the audience to go on stage for her to serenade. Now, usually at a concert when someone does this they have a little stool or folding chair for them to sit on, but they stepped it up this time. They had a plush recliner instead! All this dude needed was a beer & a big screen TV & he would have been set – lol. He looked a little nervous, but it turns out he had to be on his best behavior. He was there with his wife. Anyway, Beyonce starts singing & mixed in a little “Bump ‘N Grind Remix” with the part that says “Don’t front. You know about the rodeo show.” That was so tight!

The thing that I loved the most about the concert was that it was all about the ladies (with the exception of “Cater to You” – lol). As I’m sure you’ve all seen in her video, she has an all-female band. (It wasn’t just for show in the video!) Y’all have gotta sit back & appreciate this because this is extremely rare! And just the gamut of songs by her & Destiny’s Child makes any woman want to jump out of her seat & scream “You go girl!”... “Ring the Alarm”, “Me Myself & I”, “Bug a Boo”, “Bills, Bills, Bills”, “Girl”, “Jumpin, Jumpin”, “Independent Women”, “Say My Name”... And the song of the night was definitely “Irreplaceable”. Empowering doesn’t even begin to describe seeing over 70,000 people in Reliant Stadium doing “to tha left, to tha left” in unison! (BTW: Kristle & I discovered that it is pretty easy to insert people’s names into the song. All you have to do is insert that wack boy’s name before that phrase & you’ve got it! LoL)

I wouldn’t give this show anything less than 2 thumbs up. Beyonce sounded fantastic & looked flawless as usual. The show was well put together. She did just about every song that I could think of all the way back to ’97 except “Listen”. She did a little screwed up version of “Bug a Boo” to rep that H, & even had Slim Thug & Bun B slide in to perform “Check on It” with her. This is the best performance I’ve seen by her yet.

What Happened to Tevin Campbell?

Now here's another person I know we have been wondering about. It seems like he just fell off the face of the earth after his last album flopped in the late 90's. But I don't want to talk about that. I want to reminisce about the good days for a minute.

Let's take it back to '91 and his first album T.E.V.I.N..... Yeah, you remember that jam "Tell Me What You Want Me to Do". And then in 1993 he released one of the best R&B albums of the 90's, I'm Ready. It seems like that record just had hit after hit. "I'm Ready", "Always in My Heart", "SHHH" and my personal favorite "Can We Talk". Man! This is making me want to run out to Best Buy right now and pick that up!

Since then, Tevin's released two more albums that paled in comparison to his previous double platinum success. And other mentions of him in the media were related to his run ins with the law and rumor mills. Despite that, it appears that he will be trying to do it big in '07 by making a comeback. He's been in the studio since last year working with an A-list roster of producers including Scott Storch, Krucial Keys, Rodney Jerkins and Teddy Riley.

Concert Review: Jamie Foxx is Unpredictable

Last week I went to the Jamie Foxx concert and his show was truly "unpredictable". The show started off with comedian Speedy's stand-up routine. It took a little while for him to get warmed up, but you couldn’t help but laugh when he started talking about people in the audience who were trying to find their seats. And he just kept on talking about this one guy and his too small (aka smedium – no that’s not a typo) shirt.

After that, Jamie came out and did a good 30 or 40 minutes of stand up saying “I’m an Oscar winner but I’m ghetto.” It was pretty funny. One joke he told I was laughing so hard there were tears coming out of my eyes! Good stuff. There was only one thing that started getting a little annoying. He periodically would have the DJ play Jim Jones’ “We Fly High” to get a little crowd participation. Don’t get me wrong. This was tight because that song is a hot club track. It just got a little old after the 50th time he did it.

Then Jaime did a quick wardrobe change before he started singing. He sounds really good live which, as I’ve said before, everyone cannot pull off. This concert was truly like nothing I’ve been to before since he is a singer and a comedian. It was funny because he would sing something that sounds incredible but he’d crack jokes at the same time. For example, the band was doing a little break down and Jamie starts free styling and singing about how he met this girl at Pappadeaux’s who was eating shrimp. His voice sounded great but you couldn’t help but laugh at the comedy.

So, he did a few songs off the album. The only thing that bothered me was the back up dancers. For part of the set they looked like straight up strippers (with poles and all). But, I guess Jaime had to do something for the fellas since the rest of the show was for the ladies. Then he did his Ray Charles bit with wardrobe, grand piano and all. The resemblance to the real genius is amazing, but I guess that’s why he won the Oscar!

He performed almost his entire album but I definitely had my two favorite songs of the night. Now, my favorite song on the album hands down is “Do What it Do”. He also did a slow and very mellow version of “Storm (Forecast)”. This rendition was so beautiful it was way better than the album recording! As expected, he did his biggest hit to date, “Unpredictable”, to close out the show. But I don’t want to talk about the performance of the song. I want to talk about the audience.

Read carefully because this is an important lesson for all concert goers: DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL THEY PERFORM THEIR BIGGEST HIT! Performers always act like their show is over, leave the stage and then come back to sing that one song everyone is waiting to hear. Now granted, some people leave because they are trying to avoid that post-concert gridlock in the parking lot. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to a concert when this has happened and people are scrambling to get back to their seats when they realize the concert isn’t over.

Overall I was very impressed with how the show flowed. There were only brief breaks for Jaime to make his wardrobe changes. I've talked to a few people that said that he wasn't all that when he performed at Essence Festival last year. And some of those people who went also attended last week's concert and said it was way better. So, for those of you who decided not to go this year based on Essence, you missed out! It was great to have this Texas boy back home!