Wired

With the Parapan Games beginning this week-end, the festival activities also started up again. So on Sunday, I went down to Nathan Phillip Square to see Janelle Monáe. It was the biggest crowd I've witnessed with the entire square filled up cheek to jowl.

On her albums, Monáe explore futuristic themes with herself as a fugitive android named Cindi Mayweather. But live in concert, she resembled a young, beautiful, female James Brown with her pompadour and white suit. The bass, horns, and vocals emphasized the funk in songs like Dance Apocalyptic, Come Alive, and recent club hit Yoga. She called out to the strong ladies in the crowd with Q.U.E.E.N. and Electric Lady. In fact, Monáe often tried to get crowd sing-alongs going on both upbeat numbers (Tightrope) and slow ballads (Prime Time). Along with her energetic dancing and popular covers (I Feel You, I Want You Back), she may be the hardest-working woman in show business. Unfortunately, it was a bit lost on the reticent crowd which comprised of a sizeable number of curious onlookers (for free events). So her usual crowd-surfing was aborted to a few waves when she waded into the front row.

The upside was that unlike her noisy show at Kool Haus a while back, I was able to enjoy the better sound of tonight's mix. Still, for such a large, outdoor gig, the set-up seemed rather anemic. Monáe's big pipes were sometimes reduced to tinny vocals and André 3000's guitar solos were completely lost.