Sunday, July 15, 2007

Thisday Festival/fiasco

The much awaited Thisday festival,ended this morning. I had fun but I was also disappointed with the organisers.

1st Blunder :Merging the 2day event into one. I arrived at the Thisday event centre in Lekki at 6pm, and a few people had arrived. We(My colleague and I) bounced in happy that at least we arrived "early". When we got into they hall itself,it was not ready,it looked like the event was to take place next week. The stage wasn't finished, some of the equipments were still in the boxes, the hall was not fully arranged. Trust Nigerians now, we still sat down hoping that the organisers will do some magic oh! and ofcousrse they did, The able oga patapata of Thisday, got on the uncompeleted stage and annouced that the event had been shifte till tomorrow, apologising. His reason: customs didnot clear the equpiments on time and something about Shakira coming in two aircrafts,I didnot bother to hear the rest, I just got up and left.
New time:11am on Sunday.

Sunday morning: I skip church and hurry again to Thisday centre.
I got there early and got a good seat. beleiveing that max, the show will kick off by 1pm.
for where? the show didnot start until 2.45pm, with Shakira opening the stage,
Please that lady can dance! and her hips don't lie at all at all. She performed well though it was short. She did some serious belly dancing too.

2nd Blunder: there was no comedian to help compere with Dare Art-Alade.
After each artist performed, it took like an hour, yes an hour to clear the stage, while we were waiting, did the organisers not deem it fit to entertain the audience like they did last year?

3rd Blunder: How many compere can one event have? there was Kate henshaw, Femi something(can't remember his surname),Dan foster and Dare. Four! haba!
And so that we will know which bank brought which artist, representatives of the bank had to come and announce who their bank brought.
Diamond brought Rihanna
UBA brought Kelly of destiny child.
speaking of Kelly, girlfriend fainted o! ah! at first I thought it was part of the act but when her dancers turned back and started crying and screaming her name, I knew there was trouble.
I started praying oh! Ms.Rowland must not give Nigeria a bad name, because if anything happens to her peren, na another stori be dat!For all you know USA may wage war on Nigeria!
But after pouring water,fanning her and using oxygen to revive her, she was revived! Halleluyah! one of the hosts(Kate) and some other guys formed a human fence around her, blocking the view of the audience, but as I dey front now, my eye shook well well!
4th Blunder: no strecher, no ambulance, a young able bodied man, had to carry her out of the stage.

so no ambulance, was there 1st aid kit there ?, were the organisers not envisaging any form of "accidents', I heard that an ambulance came eventually.
(imagine if there was a good hospital at every radius of Lagos and Nigeria for that matter?)
Thank God, Ms. Kelly didnot get any worse where will we have taken here to? General Hospital? The Federal Hospital in 1004 Flats that has been sold? or Reddinton hosptial on Idowu Martin in Victoria Island?

At that point, I was thinking the show will end but eventually Sasha came on stage. Her performance was fair.

The best performance for me was D-banj! yes, we love our own, that brother knows how to bring it on and keep it on!His performance was Hawt! from drums, to his dance(his steps remind me of Fela Anikulapokuti), his dancers, his back up singers, Don Jazzy,Kd form the trybe and a new artiste in Mo' Hits records,don't know his name but I know Cole is his surname.
Their performance was banging!! and colorful with the Nigerian cultural display of Calabar and Benue dancers.

Another artist that won my heart was John Legend, please that brother is good looking and fresh. He sang songs from his new album : lifted,stereo and we just don't care and ofcousre he sang "ordinary people", he was looking too fine, with he white tee shirt covered in sweat and playing his beautiful black grand piano. It was tres sexy. I could make love to that man on stage.

Rihanna - The ella ella crooner, listen to the naija version HERE, it is very nice.
She came in clad in a white beautiful gown, but i don't know why, she didnot have her performance spirit with her, she looked like someone hadddd just upset her, before she came on stage. She performed Umberella, Bobby marley song - "I wanna love you" , Unfaithful and Pon de replay".

P.diddy: Trust diddy effizi man, he came in with all bling bling. He had on a black tee shirt with Notorious BIG's picture on it. He held the crowd, it was a mutual attraction. He said that of all the audiences he had performed for outside America,the Nigerian audience is the best!
He didnot have a live band like the other artist, a DJ mixed the hits while he sang along.

I left at 12.45am, and Neyo was yet to perform, I couldnot wait to see the fine boy pink lips dude sing, but it is all good. I doubt Tuface, Mode 9 and Psquare ended singing this morning.
UB- 40, I heard they left during the event, they didnot perform, overheard someone saying that they left because their contract said they were to perform on Saturday not Sunday.
so they left. Pity, because I was really looking forward to seeing them perform.

Overall, the event was good but it could have been better, being that it was the 2nd, security was tight, food and drinks was expensive! a bottle of soda was sold at N500, X 5 of the original price, wetin? pictures coming soon, I didnot take enough,but I'll upload them as soon as possible.










19 comments:

naijabelle said...

Wow! Kelly fainted? It could have been the scorching heat.Its always a pity when they can never seem to organize an event peoperly or start at the scheduled time. A nigerian event organised here is even worse seeing as time is of the essence. Anyway it wasn't all gloom since pdiddy, mr legend and d banj did their thing.

Admin UD said...

Wonderful analysis there ms omohemi. Kudos and please come back with the pics, though i've already seen some on facebook :)

Miss Opeke said...

Tank Baba God dat nuthin' happun to Kelly o...wetin we fo do? I fo no fit waka yankee road tell boast say I bi 9ja...I fo do take anuda nationality. Phew! dat waz close...but I enjoyed readin' d gist abt d event o...

omohemi Benson said...

@Lnc,
I am grateful that nothing happened to her too.
I hope we will oneday get events right in Nigeria, the only people that got it right once was Hiphop awards in 2006 and Basket mouth's uncensored in 2007. We get money to fund the event but to put it in order is wahala.

@Ugo,
I am on it Ugo, my transfer cord don get K-leg,so am looking for an alternative to download them, and am not techie.lol

@Pink Opeke,
My sister wetin we for do? hmm, better left imagined.
Thanks babe.

exschoolnerd said...

i hurd about the kelly fainting thing on radio oh..thnk God nothing drastic happened.

i trust u had a good time all the same.wish i was dere.

cnt wait to c pics.

Uzo said...

Kelly fainted cos she is diabetic and hadnt eaten since she arrived in the country..and all the promoting she has been doing for her cd must have exhausted her

The young man's name is Wande Cole...Hot, Hot Hot. And the reason for all the set changes - all nthe big stars couldnt just deal with the same equipment and sound people so after every act, they would take off the previous acts stuff and bring on theri own stuff....

jak said...

Oh I'm jealous - I wish I coulda been there! At least you enjoyed it for me... Would really have loved to see D'banj

omohemi Benson said...

@exschoolnerd,
Yes luv, I had fun!

@Uzo,
from what I read herehttp://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1564804/20070716/rowland_kelly.jhtml, they say it is dehydration.
If she was really fagged out, why did her team allow her perform,because if anything had gone wrong,they wil blame in Africa,precisely Nigeria.
Thanks for the info.

clearing the stage while we watched was still wrong, they should got a comedian to entertain,like they did last year.
this was not for a few second, it was over an hour, haba!

I heard wande cole has a single out,maybe I have heard it and didnot know that it was him, have you listened to it?


@Damsel in the D,
You can always get to see dbanj live in Lagos, anytime.
I love the koko master.

Anonymous said...

hmmm naija witches and wizard don poke eye on d poor lady abi wetin
o ga o...so P Square no perform...what a shame!
I wish I was there sha...so u no see Neyo...naija is getting better o...they still need to plan...can u imagine
n no stretcher or nothing...shame!

oya post pictures make we saw
I mean...seee
nice post

Andrew F. Alalade said...

So the Kelly Rowland story is true ehn? Na waah oooo!

BiMbyLaDs** said...

thank u my sister for this analysis o....

temmy tayo said...

Do and put fotos for us to see. U can relate story sha, felt like I was at the event. Good job. Thanks for updating us jare.

David said...

Lovely blog. Enjoyed ur analysis of the event.

Take care and wish u all the best.

www.freelancez.blogspot.com

Cheers!

Anonymous said...

a a, so na banks dey sponsor d artists come naija now? Whatever happened to d gate fees? It's a shame about d organising.

shhhh said...

wonderful stuff gyal

In my head and around me said...

This was really insightful, thanks.
I know that despite all the blunders when next year comes, people will still rush to the watch. Let's hope there are no real emergencies like fire or even a medical one "cos these people don't seem to think far ahead.

Anonymous said...

The show sounds like it was cool....lucky you.....

SOLOMONSYDELLE said...

tHANKS FOR THE BREAKDOWN OF THE EVENT. nICE POST. oH YES, PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO SHARE PICS!

Ola said...

Nice blog. Similar opinion earlier posted to my blog and you wouldn't beleve Dele Momodu's version!

http://notesfromnaija.blogspot.com/2007/07/thisday-sef.html