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Philadelphia
- I was lucky enough to secure a spot
in the front row at the sold out Robin
Thicke concert in Philadelphia at the
run-down Electric Factory on March 20th.
Lucky meaning I survived the stampede
of grown women that bum rushed the doors.
Granted I was one of them, but I truly
came for the music. Seriously, his good
looks have nothing to do with it. Seriously!
Instead of an opening act, the wait was
entertained by a hidden DJ (mixed CD).
Around 9:20 p.m., the show started with
ballad, '2 the Sky'. Thicke sat at his
piano and smiled at the packed house.
His band consisted of a guitarist, bassist,
drummer and keyboard player, who also
doubled as hype man and background vocals.
As he breezed through some of the new
album's slower cuts like "I Need
You", "Can You Believe",
and the erotic "Teach You A Lesson",
the audience screamed at the sensual moves
Thicke did on each side of the stage.
At first, the hip movements were cute
and a good addition, but then it became
just a bit of an overkill. I can't blame
him though – part of being an entertainer
is playing up to what your fans want.
Sprinkled in between his erogenous songs,
he played his up-tempo tracks including
"All Night Long", "Cocaine",
and my personal favorites from the new
album, "Everything I Can't Have"
and "Ask Myself". The Latin
influence in "Everything I Can't
Have" transferred over to the live
audience giving people the energy to dance
with the little space they had, and "Ask
Myself" was performed flawlessly.
Although many people became fans with
2006's The Evolution of Robin Thicke ,
he didn't neglect to give longtime fans
some of the early stuff from 2003's unreleased
(in America) album, A Beautiful World.
Included was the only song to make it
on both albums, "Shooter". It
had the audience singing every word, including
the corny Lil' Wayne rap. The band busted
out the opening chords to "Get You
Alone", which samples Beethoven,
and after telling the story of messing
up with his woman (now wife, beautiful
actress, Paula Patton); he flexed his
falsetto in "Stupid Things".
As the concert closed out, Thicke did
two covers that are classics, so I was
scared for him, but they came off lovely.
One was MJ's "Rock With You"
and the other was his encore, Al Green's
"Let's Stay Together".
Direct
any comments to music@geoclan.com
or hit Deesha up on her blog
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