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 In the first half of the new year of 2002, Nelly will be traveling around North America to perform in various venues. This part of the tour section will provide you with the reviews of recent Nelly Furtado shows on the Burn In The Spotlight tour. If you have a review for any venue that you would like to share, please email us! FEBRUARY 18th, 2002 - SALT LAKE CITY, UT Have a review? Send one in NOW! FEBRUARY 15th, 2002 - WARFIELD, CA Furtado in control at Warfield Sold-out hip-hop show sometimes too slick With a debut album that's sold millions and four Grammy nominations under her low-slung belt, Nelly Furtado has reason to celebrate. And celebrate is what she did in the first of her two sold-out nights at the Warfield, from the Caribbean rave-up of "Party's Just Begun" to a delirious medley of R&B covers from the '80s and '90s. Furtado is still a relative rookie when it comes to live performance, but she's already adept at concert dynamics, knowing when to run hot and when to chill down to keep the show moving and maintain maximum audience interest. Not surprisingly, by the end of Thursday's 90-minute show, she had the house happily lapping out of her manicured hand. Knowing how to modulate a crowd's temperature is another example of Furtado's talent for successful mix-and-match. Last year the 23-year-old became a breakthrough star by deftly packaging diverse influences into a flawless pop formula on "Whoa, Nelly!," a CD that merged indie rock, R&B, hip- hop and Portuguese and other world musics. It's a crafty hybrid that pleases many, offends none and touches on almost every genre on the pop charts. Furtado applied that same stylistic recipe to her Warfield performance. Flouncing onstage in front of a fluorescent backdrop emblazoned with her name (product placement is important for a rising star), the singer quickly brought the house to its feet with the peppy hip-pop of "Baby Girl." She followed with another slice of rap lite, "I Will Make U Cry," which spotlighted a pair of buff male dancers and some surprisingly deft DJ scratching. With a somewhat bland version of "Get Ur Freak On" -- her collaboration with Missy Elliott -- as her entre, Furtado then plunged into the first of several crowd-pleasing medleys of R&B hits that included Mary J. Blige's "Real Love" and Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It." A cover of Kriss Kross' "Jump" spotlighted Furtado's weakness: Bouncing around the stage with her two dancers, six-member band and a backup singer, she conveyed little of the original's funky glee, turning a hot dance number into little more than a hip-hop pep rally. Furtado boasts great influences and a smooth delivery, but at its worst her music sacrifices soul to mechanics. It doesn't bounce off the walls; it doesn't move on an emotional level; it doesn't shake its hips to its own well-executed beats. Not that the audience, which included a fair number of families, minded. The Warfield shook en masse with dancing and sing-alongs on such upbeat "Whoa, Nelly!" favorites as "Turn Off the Light" and an encore of "On the Radio." The audience listened raptly when Furtado moved into quieter numbers such as "I'm Like a Bird" and the trip-hoppy "Legend" and happily rocked out when she donned a guitar on "I Feel You" and a show-closing jam. "I left my heart in San Francisco/ With
some club kids/ On a crowded street somewhere," Furtado rapped in the
opening lines to "Trynna Finda Way," and those lyrics simultaneously summed
up the night's show and Furtado's formula. If San Francisco has captured her
affection, the enthusiasm is obviously mutual. But the reference to
dance-club culture is little more than another genre shout-out in the star's
bulging portfolio of popular references -- not disingenuous, but cheerfully
calculated nonetheless. Songs such as "Baby Girl" and "I Will Make U Cry" find her declaring her independence, while "Well, Well" puts her in the center of the party. The music covers a wide range as well, with touches of folk ("Legend") and yearning-girl group ballads ("I'm Like a Bird"). The hip-hop side of the equation is emphasized the most. "I Will Make You Cry" and "Turn Off the Light" are speeded-up, less-ominous versions of Dr. Dre's productions, and her energetic cover of Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On" nails the point home emphatically. With her coltish charisma, Furtado maintains a close connection with her fans. A short interlude finds her miming to Criss Cross' "Jump" and Mary J. Blige's "Real Love." "I used to dance to this song in my room" she enthused. During the finale, "S--- on the Radio," she sung the refrain "myself," thrusting the microphone into the crowd for the fans to sing along. Former Basehead Clarence Greenwood was in
full-on Beck mode, mixing folk, blues and hip-hop into an engaging stew in
opener Citizen Cope's self-titled DreamWorks debut. But backed only by Chris
Joyner on Hammond and samples, his music was stilted and lethargic.
"Salvation," a bluesy, Dylanesque tale performed by Greenwood on acoustic
guitar with Joyner's organ providing gospely touches, was their short set's
most effective moment. However, what would be really amazing is if this pop vocalist was able to pull off a 90-minute show with only one album to her credit. Unfortunately, this new diva of dance music did not seem up to the task. There were numerous reasons why this concert did not live up to the advance hype. In general, she seemed a bit lackluster and couldn't quite connect with the crowd in the way that she is capable of doing. One of her greatest tools is her personality, and yet she didn't really open up to this audience. She's wasn't nearly as playful or personable as she has been in previous concerts. But those things were just minor inconveniences compared to the big problem: time. She simply had too many minutes and not enough worthwhile material. In moments, it seemed as if she was just killing time, watching the clock and hoping that we wouldn't notice. We did. Furtado tried to supplement her own material in a variety of ways, which included singing tidbits of songs by artists such as No Doubt and Missy Elliott. That didn't work. These cover tunes did provide a bit of a novelty, but it didn't take long for it to become blatantly obvious that she was just stalling. What this concert needed was another act on the bill to complement Furtado and opener Citizen Cope. The headliner's set would have been much better if it would have been cut by 25 minutes or so. The show was a nice display of her wonderfully original voice, which is equal parts sassy and childlike. When she would lock onto songs like "Hey, Man!", "Party" and "Turn Off the Light," the result was usually quite satisfying. Her understanding of rhythm and cadence is comparable to that of a rapper or a poet and she uses that knowledge well. But Furtado is only as good as the particular song that she happens to be playing. In concert, the difference between a song like the contagious "I'm Like a Bird" and the tiresome "Scared of You" could be vast. And somebody is obviously not taking care of business in the Furtado camp. Someone needs to convince her to rearrange her set list. She unwisely unloaded the majority of her most powerful songs during the first half of the set, which left very little to carry the last 40 minutes or so of the concert. Still, the Bay Area loves Nelly Furtado. The audience clapped and cheered for her signature mixture of R&B, jazz, hip-hop, folk and rock. But even the most dedicated had to admit that she was stretching things a bit. A couple more albums and Furtado won't have to stretch. And then there
will be even more reasons to love her. The evening began with the D.C.-bred Citizen Cope, a.k.a. Clarence Greenwood, whose electronified, confessional folk-hop falls somewhere on the continuum between Everlast and Ben Harper. Following his 40-minute set of lyrics both personal and political laid down over loping reggae-funk backbeats, the audience seemed more than primed for the headliner, and after 25 minutes of stage-setting and sound-checking — not to mention a floor-vibrating synth build-up of space launch proportions — Furtado dutifully appeared. Flashing an armful of acid-green bangles to match her plastic visor, the tiny brunette bounded onto a stage projected wide with her name in its signature loopy "Laugh-In" letters, and launched straight into "Baby Girl" — a funked-out, syncopated play on Britney's "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" independence theme. Backed by a bombastic six-piece band (complete with DJ) and several beefy male dancers, a somewhat nasal Nelly scat-sang her way through the hypnotic, Latin-flavored "Party" before winding into her own charting remix version of Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On," whose instantly recognizable beats worked the already surging crowd into a near-frothing frenzy. She brought things down again after that with the rueful yet still buoyant "Well, Well." An acoustic guitar was brought out for Furtado to pick at while crooning her debut album's kick-off ballad, "Hey, Man," which was interspersed with bits of the recent all-star remake of "What's Going On," on which she appeared. Now more than half a dozen songs in, the room seemed ripe and ready for The Hit, and Furtado obliged, giving the crowd an abbreviated "I'm Like a Bird" before turning the mic outward as soap bubbles cascaded down from the ceiling. A teaser bit of No Doubt's "Hey Baby" segued into the propulsive, guitar-heavy "Trynna Finda Way" before the artist left the stage once again, paving the way for an all-star scratched set of Bell Biv Devoe, Kriss Kross and LL Cool J hits. At the end of this interlude Nelly rejoined her dancers onstage for a little "Club MTV"-style git-down. Now wearing a head mic and hoodie, the
still-visored singer drew out her own sing-a-long to
Mary J. Blige's "Real Love," asking the crowd to cheer for "one of the
best songs ever," then moving into her own more recent radio hit, a
percussion-heavy version of "Turn Off the Light." Unsurprisingly, the
hyped-up crowd chanted for an encore, pulling Furtado back onstage for "...
On the Radio," a musical response to a boyfriend who mocks her FM-friendly
sound. Judging from the sold-out room, packed merchandise table and
screaming fans, Miss Nelly's the one getting the last laugh. |
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By: Neva Chonin,
San Francisco Chronicle