Music
MasiaOne And The Opening Act Blues
"It's awfully quiet in here!" shouts MasiaOne halfway through her set.
Ah, such is the life of a Toronto performer opening up a concert for an international artist. On last night's bill featuring the criminally sexy Goapele and fellow neo-soul sistas Floetry, rapper MasiaOne was charged with the noble yet thankless task of "warming up the crowd."
When it comes to a Toronto audience, success is often measured by an absence of boos and catcalls. Even the polite applause MasiaOne did receive easily translates into "Hurry up and get off the stage so the headliners can show up!"
But whoever worked the boards at the Phoenix last night gets a big ol' gasface from me. The levels were terrible. They improved (slightly) as the night wore on but it really did a disservice to the performers on stage.
It's a shame, because MasiaOne is actually good. The B-Girl threw down a tight set, showcasing a lyrical versatility that a lot of male emcees would kill to acquire. And with Zaki singing backup (who truly impressed me and sounds just as dope live as she does on her recorded material), there was even more to love.
MasiaOne's set ends and the muted applause ensues. She bows out gracefully and heads to the back.
photo: MasiaOne
Discussion
5 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
you know what i dont like about this site? a lot of people post events AFTER they go to them!!! so i only find out after the jam happened!! dammit... i would have loved to see masia one perform in person.
Hah! Sorry about that Diana! When we do pre-event posts too often, we get yelled at for just giving away publicity. Go figure.
Two things:
1) I'd suggest keeping an eye on the "Event Listings" over on the right for gig info...
2) The music bloggers are working on a new weekly column that's going to let you know about upcoming hot gigs BEFORE they happen. Yes! Hope that will help out in this dept. Then you can sit back and enjoy the reviews without any rage. ;)
What Tanja said.
I agree with Diana, so thanks for the tips Tanja.
To be fair, my most recent posts have been about upcoming events...but yeah, we're working on something like Tanja said.