The minority should overthrow their government!
It's Monday, October 29th, 2007 approximately 10:15 P.M. and the lights have reached a complete off.
Two wide screens light up with the canditorial assessment of what appears to be the Chinese version of Che Guevara. The man preaches that the minority of this country, and by minority he means the people of the underground, the kids who know how to get down, the persons who appreciate life for just what it is, the ones who feel we are living in a world full of complete bullshit. He begs that the minority should over throw their government, as if we are some vampire race who need to rise above let's say....the republicans, and stomp all over Lil' Bush! Yes, we are the ones who should rule the free world!
BANG! A vicious beat drops, and we come to realize the minority have indeed risen. In comes marching M.I.A., complete in a shark faced hoodie and a dope pair of vintage Gazelle sunglasses. She is quite petite but stands 500 feet tall and plans to come at us 100 miles per hour, and it just so happens she's got her radio on.
Last nights show at Studio A was incredible! A few technical difficulties here and there didn't stop her from doing her damn thing. She began her set with a bang and it ended in a bang. One particular thing I really enjoyed off this tour were her mash-ups. She seamlessly and surprisingly glided over a hefty selection of tracks off her two critically acclaimed and absolutely fantastic albums. Backed by her usual partner in crime on stage Cherry, they both blew the roof off Studio A.
The crowd at the show was incredibly energetic, not sure if it was the fact that we all actually paid a somewhat whopping $40 (solely based on Ticketmaster and their raping fees), or if we were just glad to finally be there and all shaking our ass in unison. You can hear the screams of die hard fans all around the room, and at one point I almost thought I was going to cry! M.I.A. seemed to be very appreciative of the love also. She managed to bring some of the crowd on stage, threw herself in for a bit of crowd surfing, and constantly allowing those lucky to be right up front shake her hand and sing along to her tunes.
She was certainly back with power, power, and we wouldn't have wanted it any less. She commanded that stage, we were all wide awake and paying attention, while following her every move. One key point of the night for me was her incredibly delicious remix of my fav cut off Kala, Jimmy. She started it off with a bit of a New Order tip, and then morphed it into a pure acid house shaker. Other track highlights include her usual mash-up mix of Eurythmics classic Sweet Dreams with 10 dolla, Bamboo Banga mashed into World Town, and she even did a great cover of Will.I.Am's I Get It From My Mama.
One incredible show, one incredible message, and one absolutely incredible woman. The world is blessed to have an artist like M.I.A. around, and we were blessed to experience her live last night. I hope you all had just as good of a time as I did, too bad tour merchandise only ran in L and XL!
By the way, did anyone hear when she called us "Philadelphia"???
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don't you threaten me with a good time...
AND Technical issues are an EMBARRASSMENT for a place like Studio A considering her setup was about as basic as IKEA's Kitchen in a box. On top of that, the sound dropped out if you left the dancefloor/sardine can. Get it TOGETHER.
But she (and Cherry) are more AMAZING than when I saw them at I/O a couple years back. You can't take that away from her. Everyone witnessed a star being born last night.