I Was There! Lauryn Hill Performs- Ready or Not?

By shaymoore // Posted on January 18, 2011 at 6:35am

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Lauryn Hill performed at The Center Stage Theatre in Atlanta on Friday, January 14th.  I have been a huge fan of her music since the first Fugees album “Blunted on Reality”.  Since I was celebrating a birthday I treated myself to the show.   Click more to read the review and watch a video of her opening number!

My ticket boasted a show time of 9pm, upon arriving at the venue a sign on the door read “Ms. Lauryn Hill performs 11pm….(or so).  That made me chuckle a bit because the “or so” was a direct nod to the much reported late starts of some of her other performances.  I myself even reported about her lateness on this blog.

She arrived on stage around 11:45pm and began a very rousing and soulful “Forever Loving Jah”.  I think the whole place sighed a collective sigh of relief because she was pitch perfect, the voice that we were worried may have atrophied from years of being out of the spotlight was as clear and true as the first time we saw her on the Apollo as a young girl singing “His Eye is on the Sparrow.”

Things slowly began to fall apart, as the crowd, myself included anticipated rocking with Lauryn on “Lost Ones” and other classics.  We came to realize that they had all been rearranged in a way that made them almost unrecognizable at first listen and too different for us to sing-a-long to.  This went on for abour 45 minutes, as people began getting drinks, going to the restroom, texting and tweeting and some people even grabbing their coats and leaving.

In between singing the unfamiliar arrangements of her hits, she admonished the band to “bring it up” “guitar louder” and instructed the light man to “make it more intimate” by the end of the show, you could barely see her or the band on the “intimate” aka hella dark stage.  With all the instructions, it almost felt like we bought tickets to watch a rehearsal.

All of a sudden, the tempo changed and Lauryn announced she was going to do some classic Fugees.  The crowd responded positively, those who had been seated were now on their feet.  She finished the set very strongly with hits from the critically acclaimed “The Score” and I left the concert with mixed feelings. 

Lauryn Hill Sings Forever Loving Jah

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