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Concert not one to remember

Homecoming week was mediocre at best, with the comedy show marred by the heat in the auditorium and the talent show being absolutely awful. Most of the student body was hopeful that the concert could salvage the week’s events. By the end of the night’s show, it became apparent that besides beating ASU, this Homecoming week was in the toilet.The concert was a general cornucopia of inappropriate activity, from a parent bringing her baby to the concert to multiple examples of “groupie” behavior. There was the obligatory cloud of marijuana smoke that seemed to envelope Webbie and his entourage.

The list of performers did very little to inspire a big chunk of the student body to plunk down $8 for a ticket to the show, and considering that BET held its annual “Hip Hop Awards” during the same time frame last week, we weren’t going to get much in the way of a quality concert.

Per the stereotype, the concert started about a half hour late. The opening acts weren’t particularly bad, but the GSU crowd was either amazingly apathetic or downright brutal, depending on where you sat. They included Season of the Tiger alum LaShonda Harris, a group calling themselves Hot Pursuit, GSU alum and bounce music pioneer DJ Jubilee, New Orleans native S-Gifted, and a heavily R&B influenced rapper named RJ.

Even though RJ had a large portion of the female crowd “excited” as he tossed roses into the audience and pulled up his shirt to show off his body, and DJ Jubilee got the crowd going with his trademark call and response bounce music, most of the audience seemed bored.

Maybe an hour later the opening acts ended. They were abruptly kicked out of the backstage area. At the same time, Grambling alum Kingi Knox was brought out as a co-host of the concert. Since most students don’t have Sirius radio, they had no idea who she was. At least they didn’t boo her unmercifully as they did fellow students during the talent show.

Knox hosted a series of contest designed to allow students to meet the artists. She also interviewed students about why they were voting in the election.

After the comedy involved with picking who would meet Webbie, the Baton Rouge-based artist took the stage with about 10 people. As mentioned earlier, most of the photographers and reporters in front of the stage probably got a buzz from the suspicious cloud that followed Webbie on stage.

A big portion of the crowd seemed to be into Webbie’s performance, and he seemed determined to do three things: show the crowd that he can indeed spell independent, inform us all that GSU actually has a principal, and hide his unibrow under a pair of dark glasses.

His set was something that most expected, and about 20 minutes later it was over. His performance was OK, but much like the most popular music lately, it won’t be remembered in a few months.

Next up was Bobby Valentino. You know, the former hook singer for Ludacris’ Disturbing Tha Peace label. This is the second time we have seen him at GSU in the last few years, and despite his popularity among the young ladies, the singer really had nothing in the way of new projects to promote.

This again begs the question: Why exactly was he here? That question aside, Bobby swooned the mostly female crowd to the point that they hopped the guardrail. What followed was quite the awful R&B show with subpar vocals, lip-synching, and rapping along to a Lil’ Wayne song sprinkled throughout.

At this point, the concert was starting to run a little too long, but we still had another act. While the crowd waited for Rick Ross, they all wondered if he would take off his shirt. Thankfully, he didn’t and the crowd was better for it.

Ross hit the stage, and at least one fan was overcome with emotion. While Ross went through his set, he had some degree of fan interaction, but there was a hint of laziness about the set. No one can blame this on his weight, since the late Notorious B.I.G. regularly performed with the energy of Flavor Flav.

Alas, this isn’t the days of Biggie and Pac, and this is what we are left with.

The concert was what it was. Most of the student body wasn’t expecting a classic show, and it’s a safe assumption that the headlining acts were just there for a check. None of them were required to be at the BET Hip Hop Awards since none of them were nominated for anything. In the end, Homecoming as a whole was subpar, and this concert didn’t help anything.

By the way, during the course of the concert, I pulled out my iPod. That should leave no doubt about the lameness of this concert.