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“India.Arie – Live in Concert”
By Derrick Warren
Before I begin, I would like for you to close your eyes. Imagine India.Arie with a rather short skirt and a perm. Better yet, a weave looking quite half done. Got it in your head? Good. That’s who I saw run out on stage at the Rams Head Live in Baltimore, Maryland. It was India.Arie’s first show on a short tour. Her appearance didn’t deter the audience from cheering at the sight her. No one seemed to have the “what the hell?” expression I had written across my face. Then it happened. She torn off the wig to reveal that beautiful natural hair we all came to associate with India. The crowd went nuts!
That was what set the mood for quite an evening. Very rarely can you say when you go to a performance that it was an evening with the artist. From the beginning she was very receptive to the audience and bridged that gap that always seems so vast between musicians and their fans, whether it was chatting friendly a very excited fan in the front or sharing her story and insight behind the next song to be performed. “I want to spread love and healing through words and music” was the mission statement India gave us.
Most of the songs performed were from
her latest album: Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship. To mix (and
shake) things up, she also slid some covers in there as well. “Crazy” by
Gnarls Barkley and “Umbrella” by Rihanna names two. A very special
moment of the evening was when she performed “True Colors” by Cyndi
Lauper.
"Very
rarely can you say when you go to a performance that it was an evening
with the artist."
This speaks a lot about India’s idea of an artist/audience relationship. Crowd participation throughout the show seemed to make it just as (if not more) enjoyable for her as it did the crowd themselves. Her trust in the people she performed for spoke volumes when she handed the mic to a fan during “True Colors.” The woman she handed the mic to belted out the chorus with clarity and passion. That could be expected. What couldn’t be expected was that she allowed the mic to be passed around the audience. In true spirit of a flawless evening, not one person who grabbed the mic hit a sour note or even miscued. Simply amazing.
Near the end of her almost two and a half hour show, she began grabbing songs from her first album. The audience was very much into the show all the way to this point. They went to that next level once she kicked into a rocking version of her song, “Brown Skin.” The show then peaked right where it should have. At the end of the encore, the band left the stage and only India and her guitar remained. As she explained the meaning and origin of the next song with “This is my prayer for everyone…” the crowd already knew what it was. “Ready for Love” was the piece that capped this performance. It seemed that this was the song everyone had been waiting for.
The performance from
beginning to end was able to keep everyone’s attention and promoted some
of the best crowd participation I’ve ever seen. This is definitely an
artist that you know nothing about until you see her live. She rings
home the true test of an artist’s worth. “Can she perform live?”
Yep…more than you know.
"’I want to
spread love and healing through words and music” was the mission
statement India gave us."