Nelly concert review
By Angharad Williams
Wembley
Arena - 9th November 2003
Last March
I was excited. Yes, I was going to see Nelly
live in Wembley with Eve as support. Nelly was the only form of ‘hip
hop’ we had access to at the weekly disco, down the local in North
Wales. Every week, my mate and I would request ‘Hot in Here’
and then dance on chairs like we were in the video (now that scared some
of the regulars). So when I found out Nelly was coming to London we had
to go!! Sadly but understandably, the concert was postponed due to illness
in Nelly’s family. So, for the past few months those tickets have
been sitting in my room waiting to be used.
Finally the six-day UK tour was rescheduled for November. However, by
this point, Nelly had been replaced in my personal top 10 by the likes
of Mos Def ‘Black on Both Sides’
and Nas’s ‘Illmatic’,
and the mate I was supposed to go with had gone off to Australia! Despite
trying to sell the tickets to my long suffering friends nobody would buy
them, so it got to the point where I had to phone everyone I knew, just
to get someone to take the other ticket and come along with me for free!
The arrangement, they take care of the drinks.
On the 9th of November, – a cold Sunday night, my friend and I made
my way up to Wembley to join screaming teenage girls who were the main
make up of the audience. Unfortunately, we missed the support who was
UK singer, Javine, who had replaced
Eve and just managed to witness Nelly's entrance onto stage in a blaze
of fireworks. There was a huge screen at the back of the stage where Nelly
and his crew emerged from and during ‘Air Force One’ an image
of the Air Force One plane was relayed to the crowd. For the rest of the
time images of Nelly jumping around and running from one part of the stage
to another were shown. The set was ok – not very dramatic and was
a bit ‘seen it all before’. There were no major costume changes,
just plenty of bling to be seen on the necks of Nelly and crew. I have
to say I wasn’t blown away by the presentation; In an arena so big,
the stage space wasn’t used effectively.
The 29 year old St Louis rapper who’s collaborations include ‘Work
It’ with Justin Timberlake and
the hit ‘Dilemma’ which featured Kelly
Rowland have brought him mainstream success. Not forgetting
his crew, Nelly brought along 'The St Lunatics'
which includes Murphy Lee, who performed
tracks from his album ‘Murphy’s Law’, which is yet to have
made an impact in the UK as yet. However, the audience lapped up the exclusive
live play and cheered as much for Murphy as for Nelly.
Young males dressed in Celtic tops and baseball caps danced to songs like
‘Air Force One’ and ‘Ride Wit Me’. Memories of driving
around in Wales listening to ‘Nellyville’ and ‘Country
Grammar’ were stirred and I found myself singing along. I did spend
most of the night dancing and seemed to be one of the only ones in the
section doing more then just bopping my head. Initially there was a poor
response from the crowd. At one point, when the St Lunatics offered the
mic out to the crowd to sing, most around me looked blankly at the stage.
I have to big up some of those crowds of teenage girls who were dancing
upstairs, and seemed that they weren’t going to let anyone else spoil
there fun. With some serious cajoling of some of their hits the rest of
the crowd eventually warmed up.
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