Still no official reviews, photographs or video of Rihanna's San Diego
(11/4/13) concert have been made available. However from the extremely
limited unofficial information out there I've been able to tell that
Rihanna performed her standard set-list and costume changes. Act 2 (Jump) and Act 3 (Man Down)
did appear in their original order. This could be Rihanna's attempt to
show support for Chris Brown by attempting to deny that the material
from the Unapologetic album is not her strongest however as I've
said before little changes like this are to be expected simply to help
keep the show feeling fresh. The big story is that Rihanna's performance
was very poor. Although there weren't any disasters you felt they were
never that far away because Rihanna seemed confused, distracted,
uncoordinated and had difficulty remembering the words to her songs. In
short she was drunk off her pretty little arse. As the San Diego
performance came at the end of a day of celebrations for Melissa Forde's
birthday I don't have a problem with this. After all people expect a
little bit of excess from their rockstars. In fact I was tempted to
Tweet Rihanna before the concert telling her that it was the one show on
the tour when she's allowed to get drunk and fall off the stage.
There is a similar information black-out regarding Rihanna's Las Vegas
(12/4/13) concert. So while I can tell you that Rihanna performed her
standard set-list and costume changes I can't tell you the exact running
order. The big problem was that again Rihanna was drunk. Although not
as drunk as she was in San Diego Rihanna was again lethargic and
uncoordinated. Her voice was reedy and weak which is clearly the effect
of too much smoking and drinking too much alcohol. As this was the day
after Forde's birthday celebration it's easy to write this off as long
party. However if it continues I'm going to have little choice then to
take it as further evidence of the negative effect Chris Brown has on
Rihanna after all this tour will live or die on the strength of
Rihanna's performances.
Although there has been no official word and Rihanna has not been on
Twitter since Thursday (11/4/13) I think it is safe to assume that Chris
Brown is still travelling as part of the tour party. Therefore the
tensions within the group surrounding Chris Brown are getting louder and
more pronounced. All concerned seem to be attempting to blame these
tensions on Melissa Fordes sexuality in an effort to promote discussions
about attitudes towards homosexuality in black American culture.
However it's quite clear that the real source of the tension is the
negative effect that Chris Brown has on Rihanna.
In terms of international reaction to Chris Brown's presence on
Rihanna's tour and the arguments around it I still seeing very little.
The only exception seems to be from Canada and that was only achieved
through very specific US pressure. Since 2011 there has been the long
running case of Rehtaeh Parsons from Halifax who claimed to have been
raped by a group of boys who proceeded to share video and photographs of
the attack on-line leading to the then 15 year old girl being bullied.
This case is obviously very similar to the Steubenville rape case which
was amongst other things a commentary on Rihanna and Chris Brown's
relationship. Parsons died on Sunday (7/4/13) after hanging herself on
Friday (5/4/13). Under the guise of the hacker group Anonymous the US
threatened to reveal the identities of Parsons alleged attackers who are
only minors unless the Canadian authorities prosecuted them. This was
rapidly followed up by arrests in the case of Californian teen Audrie
Pott which essentially the same story. On Friday (12/4/13) the Canadian
authorities responded with a very non-committal promise to look again at
the Parsons investigation.
This absence of any real international reaction to Chris Brown's
presence on Rihanna's tour bus has clearly got the CIA handlers and
others very stressed and very nervous. For example on Saturday (13/4/13)
a bus crashed in Peru killing at least 33 people. Now as with in India
Peru's roads are notoriously dangerous and accidents are common so this
was most likely just an accident. However it immediately triggered a
wave of bus crashes. The first took place before dawn today in Belgium a
bus carrying Russian school children crashed killing five and putting
five more in a critical conditions. As a European monarchy Belgium along
with the UK is one of the nations that had been hoping to do very well
out of Rihanna's tour (at the US' expense I might add). So apart from
giving Russia a hard kick over Syria this seemed to be a panicked
Belgium trying to trigger any sort of reaction to the Rihanna story. The
Belgium crash was followed up by a bus crash in California, US in which
16 people were injured. This could of course be a way for the US to
liaise with their Belgian counter-parts over the progress (or lack
thereof) in Rihanna's tour. However I think it was primarily intended to
make it look to everybody else like something was going on in the hope
that they would join in.
Finally ahead of Rihanna's concerts in Tampa (19/4/13) and Fort Lauderdale
(20/4/13) authorities in Florida are warning about the danger posed by
African Land Snails which have been eating building plaster and can
spread disease. These giant snails are a particular problem in Rihanna's
native Barbados where they have been known to cause fatal road
accidents amongst other things. So this sudden discussion of the the
invasion of the African Land Snails is intended to promote that
long-running discussion in the US over it's immigration policy using
Rihanna's case as an example. It also serves the purpose as something of
a threat to Rihanna in order to keep her in line so I doubt there will
be a change in her attitude soon.
(Originally Posted) 22:10 on 14/4/13.
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