Despite me behaving like a coked up d*ckhead Rihanna has performed what
was by all (genuine) accounts a really strong concert in Cape Town, South Africa.
However that was not to say that the concert without problems because
the local promoter (Big Concerts) hasn't exactly covered itself in
glory. Apart from complaints about the quality of the sound system the
big problem was the scheduling which should have seen Rihanna start her
performance at 20:00 (local). As I said during the concerts in London, UK is
far too early in the evening for this sort of thing. Therefore Rihanna
didn't actually take to the stage until 21:00 (local) which to be honest
was the time I was expecting her.
Apart from the fact this hour deviation from the published schedule
would annoy those people who didn't realise the schedule was going to be
ignored this creates the risk that the concert will over-run incurring
fines and that people will be forced to leave before the end in order to
catch public transport home. That obviously annoys the people that
would have missed the end of the performance and make it appear as the
concert has been a failure with people walking out in apparent disgust.
However Rihanna carefully planned for this by trimming the set-list. I'm
not sure what the full track-list was but the whole intro section and "Presh off the Runway"
definitely went. Rihanna also dispensed with the costume changes in an
effort to save time. Some people are claiming that Rihanna actually wore
three outfits but I've only seen evidence of one so it's likely they
got confused. That outfit consisted of a leopard print play-suit with
thankfully very short shorts and a black jacket with leopard print
sleeves which was later removed. There seems to be absolutely no
political significance to this outfit whatsoever. It did though look
very good on and seemed to suit the general style of South Africa.
I should point out though that there are a lot of people on Twitter
expressing their outrage at Rihanna's lip-syncing and generally poor
performance. Many of these started to appear before Rihanna even started
her performance meaning that the vast majority of them are fake written
by people who weren't even at the concert. The problem started on
Monday (14/10/13) when the Johannesburg Star newspaper ran the
front-page headline "Ri-Ri-Rip Off" and proceeded to totally trash
Rihanna's performance at the concert the previous night. Rather then
being an accurate review of Rihanna's Johannesburg performance this
seemed to be more a case of certain South Africans registering their
complaint about Rihanna's detour to Sydney which even I'm tired of
complaining about now. Therefore the people complaining on Twitter have
simply read the newspaper article and decided to join in.
There are of course a few political issues surrounding the tour such as
Melissa Forde's trip to London, UK and the small riot that broke out in
Johannesburg on Tuesday (15/10/13). However it would actually be better
if I left those until tomorrow and besides I'd much rather have a glass
of wine and sit around feeling really proud of Rihanna.
(Originally Posted) 22:05 on 16/10/13 (UK date).
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