Posted by kathy iandoli Sunday, February 06, 2011 10:59:27 PM
Friday night (Feb. 4), Montclair, New Jersey – just a few towns away from Ms. Lauryn Hill’s stomping grounds – received the local stop on Hill’s tour. The concert took place at the Wellmont Theatre, and as expected a show time of 8pm was quickly rescheduled to 9pm a day before the event. Hill has become notorious for switching show times to super late arrivals and ending at ungodly hours. This evening was no exception.
The show technically began “on time” at 9pm, with DJ Rich Medina spinning classic soul cuts and infamous hip-hop samples with old school hip-hop sprinkled in. His set was scheduled to end at 10:45, when Medina began saying his goodbyes to the crowd. A brief exit from the stage and Medina was ushered back on to spin for another half hour. By 11:15, Hill’s DJ Rampage began spinning very recent hip-hop for another hour. Four of Hill’s five children (the 5th is a toddler) were at the side of the stage dancing to songs like Lil Wayne’s “6’7” with immense energy, despite the fact that the show was flirting with midnight. Alas at 12:15, Ms. Lauryn Hill took the stage, flanked by three backup singers, two keyboardists, a drummer, a bass player and a guitarist. Clad in a black silk suit with a long red silk blouse and a well-maintained afro, Hill looked as good as ever.
She greeted the crowd in home team fashion, shouting local cities to the audience amidst loud screams. “I’ve missed you,” Hill exclaimed. “I appreciate you.”
Hill opened with the Bob Marley & the Wailers classic “Forever Loving Jah”. Her tone, her pitch, her cadence, everything that previously seemed to fall by the wayside in recent years had returned with unbelievable fervor. Perhaps the continuous touring smoothed out her recent rough vocals, but this time Ms. Lauryn Hill sounded like…Lauryn. She was quite animated too, shuffling about in five-inch heels and ad-libbing with “oohs” and “owws” at any given moment.
Then the warning came…
Hill addressed the crowd, stating she was about to play some “classics” but the classics were “reworked,” yet the “message and content” were still the same. She started with a sing-songy rendition of “Lost Ones,” the punchy diss track that opened The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. After approximately eight or so minutes, it melded into a bass-heavy version of “When It Hurts So Bad.” By this point it was close to 1 a.m. and half of the balcony at the Wellmont already cleared out as well as a third of the General Admission pit.
The remainder of the show included these redone arrangements of her tracks, sometimes twice over. “Ex-Factor” was sung twice in a row, both times sounding completely different, as was the Fugees’ The Score opener “How Many Mics.” The only song that sounded the closest to its original form was “Ready Or Not.”
Another point to note was that Hill rhymed every Fugees’ members' lines as she performed them, an interesting albeit confusing phenomenon. Hill also made use of her backup singers and keyboardists as she performed extensive moments of “scatting” while she demanded more keys with her singers repeatedly switching octaves. Half of the crowd extremely enjoyed these ten-minute tantrums, while others were bewildered and exited in the middle of them.
Ms. Lauryn Hill’s performance was marginally better than recent appearances, but it was better suited for a Las Vegas stage. Hill’s strongest fan base still appeared enamored with the chart-topping songstress, but that could be Stockholm Syndrome, considering recent performances were sad and underwhelming. L-Boogie’s Hip-Hop fan base couldn’t relate to this jam band arrangement of her classic Hip-Hop cuts, a far cry from the ferocious Femcee that set the precedent for all female rappers that followed. This could be Hill’s venturing into Adult Contemporary hip-hop as she gears for a new album, but on a happier note, at least her voice has returned.
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