Bananarama vs Tyler The Creator NYC Saturday February 24th, 2018
Robert Deniro’s waiting and so were we.. endlessly. My question is when does it become OK to stand on your chair and scream “DID I BUY A FUCKING TICKET TO A RECORD PARTY?” You enter a venue- recorded music…you have a DJ set…recorded music.. the DJ ends house music comes on…recorded music ad nauseam. Shout out to the knob of a DJ who resembled Dan Ackroyd circa ’78 drinking from a plastic cup and bopping and singing along like a sick joke. The pedo mustache and baseball hat gave me the creeps-and even the oversized, audience wasn’t moving- what was that?- who are you and why the hell did you get a slot of over an hour? If you were supposed to be hyping the crowd perhaps the lights were too bright- cuz if you could see the crowd you would have realized you were failing miserably. Oh and were you really that thirsty with your drink? Phew all that turn tabling fires up the thirst. Oh and may I ask why at a nostalgia gig you opted for the wrong decade in your platter choices? I realize the disco era was a nod to the stereotype audience but it appeared cliche’ and condescending. Did I mention they weren’t dancing? Brother there aint enough 7 and 7’s to shake those jumbo booties. You’ve seen Iman’s explanation of the Great Rocknyc Concert Caper here. I could blame our time constraints but trust me if we were out for just the Banarama gig- I’d still have been seething. Its insulting as a consumer to be fed 2 hours of records- pop the Spotify playlist on- whammo music without the Not Ready For Prime Time Playah.
What could have salvaged this atrocity is Bananarama entering like legit pop divas and energizing the room. Unfortunately what entered was Real Housewives of the 80s New Wave. Ok , Ok. they looked great- amazingly well for their age and their glitter packed skin suits were quite…sparkly. But their interaction reminded me of High School cafeteria Mean Girl clicks. Fake, Arrogant and just not very nice. They seemed to be enjoying an inside joke. Perhaps that joke was that we all just listened to recorded music for eternity. Energy? Well here’s where the crowd took over. The crowd was more energetic than the ladies. I actually felt a bit better seeing how much the former glassed over faces shouted lyrics and how the giant guts got rollin’. At least they were having fun- or were so loosened up on booze that they no longer cared. I, sober, couldn’t bridge the swindle gap of throwing 2 hours of my life away on Donna Summer tunes served by a fist pumping simpleton.
Nah nah nah nah.. we kissed them Goodbye
And off to The Theater at MSG for the closing strains of Tyler The Creator. We stepped straight into a weed infused party. The energy through the roof and rap along overload (I thought you were supposed to be mellow when you’re stoned?) Up on a pretty cool stage set up that included a giant tree, a man and a microphone electrified an audience and oozed more charisma and personality than the atrocity we had come from.
We should have flip flopped. Done Tyler than Bananarama. Hindsight, man, its 20/20.
Bananarama tour is 4 stops
Tyler the Creator doesn’t stop touring
Bananarama stuck us with a DJ insulting our wallets and intelligence
Tyler the Creator gave us a free contact high
Winner? Tyler The Creator.
Good night.
