Concert Recap

By now, you are either tired of waiting for me to write about the concert, or tired of hearing about it. I'm in the latter category, but I'll write it up anyway....

I left work on Friday and rather than trying to fight traffic to get home, I met my friend Kristie at her house. Its closer to my job, so I brought my clothes with me and got dressed there. After procrastinating for a while, I finally ironed and got ready. Once I was looking appropriately fly (LOL) we headed to the train station in separate cars. Since we live on opposite sides of the metro area, we took separate cars, so that when the night was over, I didn't have to go all the way back up there. To say that I didn't know where I was, would be an understatement, but I followed her down all those desolate roads and eventually wound up in civilization. We got on the train and headed to downtown Atlanta to the Fox theater.

When we got there, there was a crush of Black people in the atrium. Usually when I go to concerts, even hip hop concerts, the crowd is at least half white. Not for this one... it was all colored. LOL. We get in and they didn't check us for cameras or anything, so I could have brought mine. Oh well, the usher took us to the seats and they were great seats. I had seen the seating chart online, but I didn't realize I was gonna be that close. I wasn't front row or anything but I had a good view of everything. Raheem DeVaughn came on first and ran through some of his singles. He was high energy and gave a good show. He had on a suit with a bow tie and some sneakers, looking like as Stace said, "a hip hop hippie." Very Andre 3000-esque. He only performed for about 30 minutes, which was disappointing but totally understandable once Jill came on. After his performance he was taking pictures for $20 in the lobby. My homegirl got one, wait... remind me to get my $20 from her. She didn't have cash on her, so technically, I paid for it.

Next up, after a long intermission, Jill came on. I'm not gonna go down the list of all the songs she did, but lets just say she was amazing. I'm a Jill Scott groupie now. I always liked her, but even more now. The band was ridiculous. Her voice was flawless, she was getting down on the stage. Some of my favorites... when she did "Long Walk" and mixed it with Roy Ayer's "Sunshine", the bluesy version of "He Loves Me", "How it Make you feel"... Really all of it was just great. She did a good mix of the old and the new. Before I knew it 2 hours of straight performing with no breaks went by. At that point she left the stage, but no one in the audience left, so she came out and did a couple more songs. Then she really left, they turned up the lights and people started to leave. Jill then came back and said the show was officially over, but she wanted to share a new song with us. It started out with just Jill onstage, beatboxing and then singing. Then the entire band came back and joined her, then it morphed into an audience participation thing. It was mad cool. All told, Jill put on a 2 and half hour show by herself.

After the show, Kristie and I walked back to the train station (I remember one year at Freaknik, I asked a cop "where's the train station, yo?" He responded by saying "we don't have trains. We have MARTA" Not sure why I inserted that sidebar in...) and saw some interesting characters while waiting. Like the guy that had on a suit and some crocs. I didn't know they made those things for grown men. Or the guy that was playing a sitar on the train... but not asking for money. Or the guy that we thought was a woman at first that decided that he wanted to stretch on the train, and was about *thisclose* from putting his leg behind his neck. It was a character fest, and me without my camera. By the time we got back to the cars, it was too late to go get some food, so we just headed home. All in all, a great night.