Lil Wayne & T-Pain concert review
Published in The Calgary Herald on Jan. 22, 2009.
The best-selling, most Grammy nominated music artist of 2008 blazed through frigid Calgary on Thursday night, Lil Wayne igniting the Saddledome crowd with a shower of pyrotechnics and an incendiary rap set roaring with favourites.
From the opening salvo of Mr. Carter to the booming 808 on A Milli, the New Orleans rapper who claims to be "allergic to wintertime" kept things hot for the thousands of teens filling the air with a blanket of skunky smoke, singing along to every word as if a musical pledge of allegiance.
"I got three things to say," Weezy addressed the crowd early with. "First, I believe in God, do you? Second, I ain't (expletive) without you, so give yourselves a hand. And third, I ain't (expletive) without you, so give yourself a hand."
His deft wordplay, staccato flow and scratchy sing-song drawl have led to some fantastic club bangers and headphone symphonies over the past three years, and showcasing a good many of them, the 26-year-old had the crowd eating from the palm of his hand.
Flanked by a full band, giant TV screens and pyrotechnics, the show had all the drama of a rock show, and turned out to be a fair bit funny too. T-Pain rolled out on a Segway to collaborate on Got Money, and when he left the stage, Wayne hollered, "Yo, roll yo black ass back out here!"
The two then had a playful "Feature Off," each dancing or rapping to swatches of tunes they've collaborated on or produced, showcasing their breadth of influence in recent pop music.
Because if you've only heard of Lil Wayne's six studio albums, you only know half the story - he also has 10 official mixtapes and multiple leaked demos across the Internet, and has recorded a total of 1,000 songs and freestyles in just two years. So for him to have sold near 3 million physical units of 2008's Tha Carter III in this economic climate is truly astounding - even Coldplay couldn't compete with that figure. Thus even with fewer hits than misses, the sheer volume of Lil Wayne's output allows for enough quality material to last a show.
The crowd rocked along to Sky Is Tha Limit, Fireman and Tha Block Is Hot, before the intensity dropped with an ill-timed half-time show to feature a calvacade of artists on Wayne's Young Money label. Though albums had been brazenly schilled all night, this truly was the evening's informercial period.
Lil Wayne returned to perform Ms. Officer, strapped on a guitar for Prostitute, invited a backup singer to sing on Misunderstood, incited a singalong on I'm Me, did his martian impression on Phone Home, had the crowd bumping for Lollipop and had them put up their lighters for Shoot Me Down. The real highlight, though, was the banging encore A Milli, thousands of teens dancing in the aisles.
The night's opening acts had kept the crowd upbeat for the two hours before Wayne hit the stage.
"Yo, first of all, it is cold as hey-ell!" said Florida's T-Pain soon after launching the crowd into a frenzy with Kanye West's Good Life.
The 23-year-old, whose insistant use of Autotune has been both creative crutch and commercial gold, showed why he's been one of pop music's hottest producers (10 Top 10 singles) over the past couple of years. With a montage of hits that featured his Buy You A Drank, Low and Get Sprung, he followed the circus theme of his Thr33 Rings album by parading out stiltwalkers, firedancers and a midget dressed as Britney Spears ("Mini-Britney" as T-Pain dubbed her).
Energetic and crowd-rousing in the short bursts he performed in, it's a shame the low-end bass throughout his set sounded so muffled, as if the monitors were clung in Saran Wrap.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to leave you with one thing," he said, and we waited with baited breath. "Don't do it because it's cool. . . do it because you're cool."
That's, that's. . . you know, special.
The show opened with New York's Gym Class Heroes, last seen in Calgary on the Van's Warped Tour in July 2008, and Atlanta R&B singer Keri Hilson, both of whom kept the crowd enthusiastic for the main event.
