Save Me :: Lauryn does Nina Simone
The saddest thing we've ever known? Nah, it's probably the drugs. Lee Hildebrand breaks down the fan revolt at Lauryn Hill's Oakland concert:
Her hair in an unkempt rust-colored Afro, Hill wore a green-and-yellow plaid jacket that appeared to be made of wool and an ankle-length black skirt, looking not unlike a bag lady one might encounter at a taco truck on International Boulevard. She held a microphone in her right hand and a black handkerchief in her left, frequently wiping sweat from her face as she paced the stage.
At one point during the show, the singer tripped and fell, landing flat on her backside. "That's what I get for wearing high heels," she said as she rose to her feet.
...
Some concertgoers who had paid as much as $89.50 for tickets were requesting refunds even before Hill hit the stage -- two hours and 15 minutes after the concert's scheduled 7:30 start and 80 minutes after the opening act, Jupiter Rising, had finished its set...Other patrons started their exits during her first song, and the trickle turned to a flow after a speech late in the show during which the vocalist attempted to explain her new musical direction.
"When you're young, gifted and black -- and female -- you have to have a lot of endurance," she said, borrowing from the title of a song made famous by Nina Simone, a singer who'd had a somewhat similar meltdown more than three decades earlier.
"I can't fit into a stereotype that makes me comfortable for you," she added. "If that makes me feel uncomfortable to you, I need to find some new company."
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4 Comments:
I saw her in Oakland 2 days ago and it was one of the most shocking concert experiences of my life. Her voice was shot, songs were incomprehensible. She fell down onstage. She looked like a bag lady, as if she'd aged 30 years in the last 10. It was a disaster.
You can read more about it here:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/28/DDG0KQNKUL10.DTL&type=music
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2007/06/damn_lauryn_hills_train_wreck.php
http://www.ibabuzz.com/concerts/2007/06/28/the-misadventures-of-lauryn-hill/
http://elel.vox.com/library/post/miseducation.html
I'm praying for her to get better, but I fear it may be too late.
I'll be posting clips on my Youtube page soon. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=DJRottenRobbie
dj rotten robbie
damn robbie. i was out of town, but if i had had to pay a bill for that concert i might have been throwing shit myself...
A friend of mine who went to the show in Oakland confirmed to me the utter wackness of that performance. She also made it to the show in Pala and told me that performance was on point.
we saw her get booed in st. lucia in 2002. i think that's when it started, right around the whole unplugged thing. then when we saw her at vibe musicfest, it was like the audience felt guilty like they had offended her somehow when she stormed offstage after 4 songs.
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