Off the Wall: Erykah Badu at Governors Island
Last night Erykah Badu, the princess of Fort Greene, played a strange, historically-oriented, diffuse show at the worst music venue in the world, the new "Beach" on Governors Island. This video is pretty great. Here are absolutely awesome pictures of the show. Including Badu (LOL) opening act Janelle Monae riding some white man. Also please note that she is wearing vinyl pants and an Abe Lincoln hat and she just gave birth like six months ago. Haaaaayyy.
I would have to describe the medley of Whodini's "Friends" and N.W.A.'s "Gangsta Gangsta" as a huge out of control amazing highlight.
Here is the deal though. Badu live is an amazing thing. She is also sort of in her own world. That can be great. Or as one person Tweeted last night, "I love Erykah, but every song doesn't have to be the 10+ minute extra extended version, lol." There is a problem simultaneously with the venue—you need to take a boat to Governors Island, which is just down below the tip of Manhattan, and so you are trapped there, and if it is getting kind of late for you, you can't just sneak out, and so people were leaving in droves—and with Badu, who can roam off into five or six minutes of random effects-laden vocalizing. She took that show way down a few times. Which, since a lot of people were smoking a lot of pot, was probably pretty good for them!
Also, because you are outdoors, there is no room bounce on the sound. All you're getting is amp blare, and the sound drifts off over the harbor.
Also she spent most of the night pushing the effects and echo pedals hard on her mike. Why? She does not need this. She can sing.
Here are a bunch of angry people, waiting in a pen under halogen floodlights, trying to get off the island, sweating, who will never go to a show at Governors Island again—all leaving while Badu was a couple songs from the end of her set. Youch.
Not a happy crowd!
But you know, here is the view of Lower Manhattan! So if you are super-relaxed and don't mind being confined and barricaded and trapped, you might enjoy how pretty it is!
And there is no such thing as a bad Badu show. So there is that.
The venue is a problem, especially sound-wise. I was camped with my friends at the border between the beach and the pavement and the sound was a little faded back there, but when I walked in to about 10 feet from the stage, the amps were loud, flat and a little overpowering – I think that's part of the reason she was pushing the echo effects, etc. Also, I was with two friends who wanted to get off the island and were stuck in that crowd trying to make it to the boats during the encore – leaving before the end of a Badu show is near sacrilege to true believers like me (forgiveness, plz, Ms. Wright).
She was definitely more in her own musical world than usual. She basically played straight through until the break and didn't make any of her clever monologues in between songs – that's usually a favorite part of her shows for me.
And she DID look amazing, esp for having a baby six months ago.
But how was Janelle Monae IRL?