020LIVE CONCERT: SUCCESS OR FIASCO?

Vodafone definitely intended to take Ghana by storm with the 020live concert which took place at the Dome on Founders’ Day. But it did and it didn’t. Performers on the bill were definitely star quality: Dbanj, Wande Coal, Five Five Dr. Cryme, VIP, R2bees, Stay J, Vodafone’s RnM, and of course, Trey Songz. The MCs of the night were Eddy Blay and Amber Rose.

Amber Rose doing the Azonto

The Dome was already filled to its high brim by 6pm; a boast for the organizers but an unexplained punishment for the eager audience who had to wait about 4 hours before the show started. A round of hyping the audience by the DJ provided a good but long prelude before the MCs came on stage. Eddy Blay and Amber Rose finally appeared on stage to commence the night. Amber Rose looked breathtaking in the Ghanaian Afrocentric fashions she was clothed in. Her body just had the men by their necks. Unfortunately, it would have been very helpful if the organizers made it clearer to the people that she was only there to model our fashions and not MC, or at least, she should have perused the program before coming on stage! Beautiful woman and all, with two MCs on Stage, we do not need one repeating everything the other says. We just heard what Eddy Blay just said okay! Oh and don’t just stand there looking lost, sweetheart.

Eddy and Amber

Five Five opened the doors with their hit songs including “Mugyebaya”. Dr. Cryme opened his first show with a marching band, complete with drums and trumpets. Talk about a perfect way to begin your performance! He had his fans roaring. However, after the first song was performed, the marching band was still on stage, and looking quite useless. A crowd of men waiting for their leader to finish performing so they could march off the stage. Dr. Cryme’s performance was not so stellar after all, with problems of a not-so-smooth voice. Some artists sung with their voices and no miming over their CDs . This did not help some of the artists, Dr Cryme involved!

Dbanj, recently signed on to Kanye’s record label, GOOD Music, came on with heavy swag ushered on to the stage not only by his entourage of supporting singers but with love from his Ghanaian fans. His voice was off in the beginning, but it picked up. Songs like, “Scapegoat”, “You Bad” with Wande Coal, “Give it to me” with Prince “Mr. Endowed” and “Oliver Twist” turned the Dome into a popping club. In his search for his “Coconettes” to give “Cocomobiles”, Dbanj got some girls up on that stage to have a feel of him and let the audience have a feel of them too. Dbanj went off stage only to surprise the audience with yet another performance after Wande Coal and R2bees, and VIP performed. He truly showed why he is one of the fastest rising African stars who is making his voice heard far beyond the borders of Africa.

Ghana’s own VIP’s stellar performance deserved the resounding applause they got. They did new and went old school, which just typified the swagilicious style of VIP. Songs like “Besin” brought back the first hit days so much to the audience there was so much screaming and sing-along. And the new: “Change Position”, “Away” and several others. There is a reason why VIP, despite the increasing competition, has remained Top Dog. Friction, who was once a member of VIP, was pulled on stage by his former buddies, to perform with them once again, just like in the old days.

Ghana’s own Destiny’s Child hit their biggest stage that night so far since their win as the Vodafone Icons. RnM came on stage performing their single which has already hit the airwaves, "Let your hair down" and treated their audience with other songs they are compiling for their album. Their first appearance on stage raised shouts of “Ei!” Which Ghanaian female artistes have ever come on stage carried by big, buff guys? However, it seemed the crowd’s mesmerized silence was not in awe of their songs which are different, but in seeing, first of all, a girl group, and secondly, perform so differently from what they are used to. Their formation dances were definitely a reminder of something very western but was quite shaky. You could see their lips moving as they quietly talked to one another to move in step, and there was constant looking down or at themselves instead of their audience. But, congratulations on a good first job!

A crowded night like that would not have been complete without controversy. R2bees did not come on stage when they were introduced by Eddy Blay, which leads us to assume they did not come early. Apparently, they came later but were not going to be given their turn again, however, there was no way they were going to miss this golden opportunity to sing to their fans! They came on stage with Wande Coal to their collaboration, "Kiss your hand", and announced to their fans that “We came early but they did not want us to perform”. Hmmmm

A crowd would always draw rowdiness and quite a number of fist fights took place. Pickpockets had a field day with the number of phones and purses that were stolen.

Unfortunately, this problem of GMT (Ghana Man Time) would probably be the hugest pitfall of the otherwise remarkable concert. It seemed the organizers adamantly wanted to refuse attempted progress from this problem of time which is a Ghanaian problem. So they decided to go overboard and start the program about three hours later than the stated time. And later, it seemed the organizers wanted to give the audience a chance to bond with themselves, so they put their very faithful audience in darkness, with no music at least to fill the vacuum, for about 40 minutes, as the stage was prepared for Trey Songz! Talk about a perfect dumper to happy spirits! Though Trey Songz’ performance was great, he did not have the chance to complete his selections before people started to leave. It was just too late, and waiting, too long and tiring! However, Trey tweeted, "Although at no fault of mine, I wanna apologize 4 goin on stage 2hrs late & thank thank thank u all 4 stayin!!! Ears still ringin!!! "       

But then, perfection is a rarity in human dealings, thus, Vodafone still deserves a snapping of fingers for their efforts. It was worth seeing Amber try to do the azonto and people were standing on their chairs throughout the night. Great work done!