It appears that international US R&B singer, Trey Songz came to Ghana with one thing on his mind; that is to inspire Ghanaians to believe in themselves, and work hard toward achieving their dreams – and well perhaps to find himself a girlfriend as well. Song after song, he gave inspiring messages to the audience and occasionally blurted out that he is single and looking for a girlfriend during his headlining performance at the much anticipated Vodafone 020 Live Concert.
Using himself as an the example, the artist who first found fame with his inspirational hit song, ‘Gotta Make It’ featuring Twista, had a lot of such interactions with the crowd. In the middle of performing ‘Successful’ he made the following remarks also:
“I may be no inspirational speaker but when I look out there I see beautiful and I see black. Now this is a blessing for me, to be able to perform in front of my people and the love that you have all shown me, I will never forget. And I will not feel good about myself if I leave here without inspiring each and every one of you. So when you wake up in the morning and you look into the mirror, say ‘I love myself’, because I love you all back!”
Trey Songz certainly had a successful concert and the reaction from the Ghanaian crowd to both the songs they knew and the ones they weren’t familiar with was simply amazing. Although there was a long wait in changing over from Dbanj’s band, the crowd waited patiently till Trey finally came on stage to hit them with back to back performance for almost two hours.
My 020 Live Experience!
I have received a lot of messages from readers saying that they are looking forward to my review of the Vodafone 020 Live Concert so I will do a quick review of the concert that truly made me feel appreciated for my work as a ‘celebrity journalist’. Even before I get into that I must congratulate Vodafone for thinking big and trying harder to take Ghanaian music and entertainment a notch higher. Do I think a Ghanaian could have been the main host for the show? Yes! But does that mean Amber Rose does not qualify to host the show? No!
Today, I monitor the internet and so many major websites are talking about Amber Rose in Ghana. What does that do for our country? It puts us on the map! And for the websites that mentioned the local musicians that performed on the bill; it’s an extra publicity for them internationally. Even I have benefited from the buzz, as my interview with Amber on YouTube has made the rounds on several international platforms. I have received more subscribers on YouTube and more followers on Twitter since that. I say thank you to Vodafone for granting me access to Trey Songz and Amber Rose. I hope other event organizers who are well aware of my efforts will show me a similar respect when they bring in others for their shows.
Now to the show! I went to The Dome to see Trey Songz because he was the only artist on the bill that I hadn’t seen perform before. He gave a good show and so I went home happy, though exhausted because he came on stage rather later. Well, when he started his performances, the instrumentation was rather loud and noisy but as the performance progressed, it improved tremendously. Oh and seeing Amber Rose do the Azonto dance to Sarkodie’s ‘You Go Kill Me’ was quite delightful!
I didn’t enjoy most of performance from the local acts perhaps because I have seen them over and over again. But if that’s the case then I don’t know how hiplife group, VIP still managed to excite me on the night. One thing that stood out for me throughout the show was the reaction from the crowd. Majority of the crowd in the non-VIP sections stood on the chairs for most of the concert. Some even managed to dance on the chairs and the auditorium was simply packed.
R&M, was the only act that made some of the people who had gotten up to stand in their seats, sit down. I don’t think their performance was that terrible but perhaps because the crowd couldn’t relate to their songs which are very new and not too popular. They shouldn’t have started their performance with the high energy song, ‘Let Your Hair Down’; they looked and sounded out of breath for their subsequent performances.
Most of the performances were quite noisy and forgettable. I can remember Dr Cryme for his bold attempt to bring in a brass band to give a live twist to his hit song, ‘Kill Me Shy’ but it seemed he didn’t know what to with the band. They looked unprepared, didn’t know when to play, when to stop playing or even when to get off stage. As for 5five, they need another hit song! R2bees didn’t come on stage when they were called to come and perform but popped in to perform ‘Kiss Your Hand’ when Wande Coal was on stage and then gave the crowd ‘Agyei’ with the excuse that “…we were here very early but they didn’t want us to perform”. Hmm!
Dbanj started off quite badly because he sounded off. And why wouldn’t he sound off when he came on stage screaming and walking about for over two minutes before he started singing? Where does he get all that energy from, truly an entertainer! I wasn’t feeling his voice and the live band thing until he introduced his fellow Mo Hits label-mate, Wande Coal. Wande Coal wowed the crowd and myself for sometime before Dbanj came back to do his performances. When he returned he was much better and I enjoyed his latter performances more.
So that’s my experience in a nutshell! Oh but I can’t leave without rubbing it in just a little bit. The Vodafone 020 Live concert is the only concert I that I have been to and didn’t envy the people in the VIP section. Well they had the best seats in the house (sofas) but certainly didn’t get the best view in the house. They were located far from the main stage and had to watch the action on a giant screen. Anything, they also had some cocktails and finger-food to nibble on and also there weren’t any annoying teens screaming ‘unprovokedly’; occasional fights breaking out; or people blocking the view of others - or was there? Laugh out loud! Anyway, let’s see what happens next year when the Vodafone 020 Live concert returns!
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