Like sunshine after an electrical storm, music can be a refreshing, healing experience. Like water for the mind, it can rinse out the cobwebs from the crevices of your consciousness to make you seem to see the world anew. You emerge from it rejuvenated, or as a brother from Bucktown once termed it: ‘Opin’.

Saturday nite on Roskilde 2002, mad headz were opin’d.

The lady responsible was that radiant exception to the rule that contemporary soul is but a shadow of its former glory, that Soothsayer of the Soul, the Southern Gurl, Sable Sister, Erykah Badu.

Spanning from a dusty, almost meditative rendition of her most existential tune, ‘On & On’, intermingled with snippets of Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Red Clay’, to a gritty, hard rock version of ‘Penitentiary Philosophy’ that had Ms. Badu’s banshee-like, clear-as-day voice ripple through the audience while she threw the heavy-rock hornsign in the air, the show ran the gamut of positive emotional states, delivering on every account.

The lady herself was the indomitable centre of attention, using not only her tender, yet tough-as-nails voice, but her slender, muscular body – her whole physicality – to evoke an experience that was so much more than that. A high point was when she let fall all decorum for ‘Cleva’. She dispensed with the exceptionally steep plateau heels she had worn through, amongst other cuts, a funkdafied version of ‘… & On’, and danced barefoot about on stage, her lithe body pirouetting as effortlessly as a hummingbird draws nectar from a lily in midair.

This led to the real tour-de-force of the show. A mesmerizingly soulful suite of the lady’s ballads. A breathtaking delivery of ‘Kiss Me on My Neck’ had her turning her bare back at the audience, while she swayed her hips and let her supple hands caress her forms in a way for which ‘sensual’ is but a word. Proud, yet playful, strong, yet delicate, raw, yet refined, sexy, yet dignified, creatively gifted and beautiful beyond words, it is safe to say she encompassed all the cardinal characteristics of that most wondrous of creatures – the rarest of herbs – Woman.

The emotional high point of that night, however, was when she, after a musical interlude, went to the front of the stage to embark upon an almost elegiac rendition of the moral manifesto ‘Liberation’ from Outkast’s ‘Aquemini’ album to which she sang the words of both her ex-husband Andre and ATL showstopper Cee-Lo and naturally followed them up with her own verse. She left us reeling with the logical conclusion to the show, the final line of the song: “Free your mind and you go on home”.

But that was not all. With a packed Green Stage screaming for an encore, she came in and gave the more than opin audience the coup-de-grace – an extended version of ‘Bag Lady’ that pulled out all the stops. Yours truly is left with a vivid image of the Southern Belle surfing the crowd, grabbing hold of a banner and waving it with such vitality that it broke.

Liberated. Everyone of US.

Fotos af Heinecke © RapSpot.dk

Adorating of the Rib Erykah Badu, Green Stage Saturday 21h00, Roskilde Festival – 29th of June, 2002
performance:	Deep professionalism tempered by incredible vitality.	OnPoint faktor: What a day, what a day.
underholdningsværdi:	I am still reeling
spillested:	Green Stage, although perhaps a little too packed, provided the necessary intimacy.
stemning:	Above the Clouds.
street cred.:	Crowd-surfing. Flag-breaking. What a woman.	set af: Mat

sådan læser du karaktergivning: 7 x = On Point! 3 x = Nice Shot

6 x = Almost Bulls Eye 2 x = Target Practice

5 x = Heavy Hitter 1 x = Not Even Close

4 x = Hit Potential 1 x = Greatest Miss

Skrevet af Mat 29.06.2002 arkiveret under LiveSpot |