Concert review (Laundry Service - Shakira)

Member Name: FeCapri82

Product:	Laundry Service - Shakira
Date:	07/05/03 (342 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Shakira

Disadvantages: Shakira

Dónde Están Los Ladrones?
(Where are the Thieves?)

Today I sat on my balcony in the sun singing along with her. The power and feeling was there on my balcony in the sun. I felt her next to me, both feeling rejected and angry. I felt her closer to me on my balcony without her being present than she ever could have given me during the performance she gave some days ago.
Shakira?s soul lies in her music. Her power and presence lies there. When her music does not come across during her performance, nothing of hers can, except for making you horny. Shakira was sexy and sensual, and made everyone at that moment want her?But not for the right reasons.
She made you feel like you saw Britney Spears perform in Las Vegas.

I can tell you all kinds of things, which went on during this event, which you wish you saw. Like Shakira belly dancing with candles on her head or Shakira drumming away or Shakira pole dancing.
Or Shakira acting like a tiger turning into a robot which I think was pretty damn good when you search for a deeper meaningful thought, cause this act just exactly showed what she had turned into: a fucking Pepsi commercial which had a two hour running time.
We had to wait for an hour and five teen minutes. Which I didn?t mind, I?m used to it and I think all respected artists should let their fans wait and wait to test their support. This audience already started booing after thirty minutes which I thought wasn?t all that nice but I did participate cause when I?m allowed to rebel I will. Then I began to name all the songs titles and artists, which came by. A lot of Garbage, I mean, Shirley Manson. I guess this is how Shakira pumps herself up before her act. Bet Shirley wouldn?t be all that pleased with the result she gave cause of it, tonight. Cause the last thing you could find tonight was: rock. Although I have to admit my highlight was her cover version of Aerosmith: ?Dude looks like a lady?. But this is also for how far roc
k could be found during her act. And another thing I need to admit and agree on when it comes to the press coverage which was all, positive btw: Shakira did it all on her own. She did not ask for any support from dancers. Her ass and hips were enough. And this was a positive thing, the way she left these out, in the old fashioned way. This was also the only thing, which did not ruin my expectations, which did not include dancers cause she does not need support of any of that kind, those would be like Britney?s silicones, on her, terrible thought, too weird, too freaked, too fucked up, too fake. Shakira is not Britney although you can make anyone into a Britney.
The show began with ?Welcome to the jungle? by Guns and Roses blearing out of the speakers. Which only I seemed to recognise at that moment, which I thought was pretty cool and I felt appreciated by the people around me for my knowledge.
She changed clothes more than 7 times or something and made us watch some clips which existed out of sentences which were about ?love? and ?peace? and made me furies, for example: ?When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. ? J. Hendrix.? Jimi himself could have brought it ten times more power at that moment, without even being present.
At several moments of the show she had to let us know she was against the war, but I think she only let this know so that the reporters who were sitting somewhere could write about Shakira being this Liberal woman and all. You can say: ?Di no a la Guerra! Di no a la Guerra! Di no a la Guerra!? as many times as you wish but it won?t come over meaningful in anyway. The way she brought it, it sounded like some working constructor guy who whistled at you and you didn?t feel the need to look up. I felt used and abused and not a part of this happening at all and whether this was going on in a venue made to fill 500 or 15.000 people didn?t matter. It was an act and it did not include us. Like a
press conference, reading your statement: which claimed you were still a virgin and the perfect sober girl who everyone wanted you to be. And I didn?t buy it and felt lied to. Nothing came over sincere, except for her apologies cause she let us wait. I felt like screaming and waking her up: Objection! Objection! Where did her Latin spirit go? Where did the girl I once fell in love with go? Where? Who stole her away from me?
I did not ask to be an extra in her Pepsi commercial or DVD promo. But I was. And I felt used and abused afterwards. I felt ?dirrty? (feat. me)!
When I now listen to her I feel and hear the woman. Shakira is my rock chick! And Shakira is still mine and no one else?s she even left 15.000 people leaving with the thought which I hate people speak or think of when it comes to the subject: Shakira.
October 3rd Christina Aguilera will come to Holland and will do her version of pole dancing in the Ahoy. You might think I?m sick of it by now after witnessing the act I just have. But then I ask her and her dancers to and do not expect anything else than that. Yes, I bought tickets Saturday I got out of my bed at 9 AM for that. I bought tickets for a night out to dance and freak, like a youngster does. I don?t ask for more even when I know there is more, it?s good that I know that fact but don?t expect it anymore. And maybe she?ll even surprise me, but I don?t and will not ask for it. It would also be impossible to ask from the world she?s in at this moment so I won?t.
And I don?t even feel the need to. But that?s me, when it comes to these artists.
I don?t have more respect for Shakira than Christina but I do like one more than the other. But that?s just personal. Even the little things end up as a result for my dislike. Little facts. Like Christina, asks for and, I copy from this month?s issue of ?The Face?: One bottle of fine red wine at room temperature, a selection of dried fruit ? no apricots ? an assortment of candy bars, at
least two scented candles, one stereo and some soft lightning (or all kinds of other absurd demands) before she even wants to enter her dressing room. If these things are not there she just keeps sitting in her limo while the PR girl in the venue who is in charge of this evening events drives herself crazy cause ?how in the hell is she going to get these things within some minutes?!??? Shakira does not even ask. She just comes and takes everything as it comes and goes. One is simple or just ?normal? other is going towards the wacko sight of Diva mind. When one earns the Diva tag and the other just simply doesn?t.
I will not speak positively on Shakira when it comes to the performance I witnessed. I will not and do not. It was commercial teen pop shit, which made my stomach sick. It was all one big act.
I will keep defending her on all grounds when it comes down to the real Shakira: Shakira, the musician. And Shakira is also a great performer, she did show us all: Packed and stuck into a commercial world, which she doesn?t seem to struggle with but seems to love. Or it might be the other way around, which might explain the result she set in the Ahoy. I hope to see more of Shakira one day, the day she broke loose, out of the web she got her self into. Out of this damned sickened commercial music business, I wish and hope to God that she will allow me one day. The day she will go back to being Shakira and, only Shakira. It?s still a dream, which I think deserves to come true before I die. We have all the time in the world, she?s still only 25 and I?m only 20 so I will wait and wait. If you?re such a liberal minded person I think you will show me your true spirit one day. I think a real fan deserves that sight.
And many might blame it on the venue, cause it was such a big event, but I have been in bigger venues than ?Ahoy?, I have been in stadiums where even more people can fit in. I have seen The Rolling stones? here in Amsterdam, i
n the Arena Stadium and I have been to The Spice Girls in the Gelredome Stadium. I cannot remember much of The Rolling stones but The Spice Girls are still in my mind.
The Spice Girls made that stadium theirs at that moment. They spoke to us, to the children and the mamas and papas, separately, at several stages during their performance and they gave us all the feeling that they were enjoying what they were doing at that moment. I now also have great respect for what they did there in that stadium when I think of it now. Because this is quite a hard thing to set up, to bring it over to all those people at that moment in a personal way. And The Spice Girls got away with it, they made all those children feel special with their sing-along dance tunes and even made the parents a part of their happening too, when they sang some 80?s disco and 70?s soul covers for the papa?s and the mama?s. And they were also really young at that moment, in the beginning of their twenties. The Spice Girls did it. They made almost the impossible possible. And they taped it all at the same moment too for their world tour video report. Amazing. All those children sat with a smile on their face on their way back home in the train, they made them even love them more than they did before. What the Spice Girls did there was magical and remember-able.
Maybe I would have sat, again, with a smile on my face back home from Shakira?s concert, in the train back to Amsterdam. But then I had to be 15 for that, again. Some years can change a lot I have changed a lot in those 5 years. But the music world, the commercial business pop scene can change a lot too.
Though, this all doesn?t stop me from loving its result it might bring me at times.
As long as it doesn?t, become reality in front of me.
In other words when you want to see a pure, real, natural performance, which will stay with you for the rest of your life, you should not pick one from Shakira but one from, for example:
Ani DiFranco. But well, then we go way over to the opposite of the commercial music. But even Jewel might do, who has been in the top 40 hit parade and can be found on several CD hit compilations and who will appear on Carson?s TRL show. Jewel just shows you can mix both. Be both. Go commercial and stay pure. Even with her upcoming CD, which is totally manufactured commercialised pop, for as far as I could hear from the samples on the Internet, I as a fan also admit, with pain in my heart, that it is. And bet it will hit nr.1s all over the place. I bet thousands of five year olds will now also love her and buy her music. Just like Sheryl Crow did with her last. Sheryl made a CD wrote songs, which she thought everyone would like to hear, foremost the ones who had never been quite into her music, forgetting about pleasing the ones who loved her from the beginning. But this does not stop me from expecting Jewel or Sheryl and no one else during their performance and I bet they will not disappoint me, even after their commercialised trip, which hopefully only is a trip and not a long-lasting ?gotta please everybody" journey.

Shakira
22 April
Ahoy, Rotterdam
Holland

Summary: