Wyclef Jean rocked Hard Rock Cafe!!!

Last night I went to the Wyclef Jean concert at HRC...and what a concert it was!!! I have never had this much fun at any concert! The man can make you dance! He started with some great guitaring, playing with the guitar on his back and then with his mouth. After a while, it was getting really hot (not in a good way!) and he took off his shirt and played the rest of the evening in his vest. He sang Marley's 'No woman no cry' and 'Redemption song', and did the Shakira 'Hips don't lie', where he asked all the women to come on the stage to dance with him. Too bad I had a good spot to stand in and didn't wanna lose that so I stay put.

'The sweetest girl' was one of the highlights of his show....he sang it for at least 15 minutes....he had a nice way of letting the band play and do some freestyle rap, scream a little "India! I hear Mumbai is a crazy city....where are the crazy ppl???" And the crowd would go "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". Haha it really was crazy. He did the same thing with another song....though I don't know which song that is. But it really got the crowd get a workout! It was a Jamaican style song where all I heard was "We wanna party....we wanna party"!! He connected with the crowd with the whole colored skin issue...said "Why are we called immigrants? I say Columbus was an immigrant! I say Marco Polo was an immigrant!"...WE WANNA PARTY, WE WANNA PARTY..."When I was new to America, they asked me..why u wanna come here...you can't even speak English! And I said...I wanna be President of the United States of America!"...WE WANNA PARTY, WE WANNA PARTY..."They ask me what do you think of the presidential race...you know with Hillary and Barack...and I say...look like we gonna have the first non-white president of America!!"...WE WANNA PARTY, WE WANNA PARTY!!! It completely got the crowd rolling....we were almost in the "hood"! In fact, at one point, Wyclef introduced his bodyguard on the stage and told us that his bodyguard was different from all other bodyguards....and then he started again....WE WANNA PARTY, WE WANNA PARTY....with his bodyguard abruptly starting to dance crazy!

I had just found out that day that Wyclef had made a song with Aadesh Srhrivastava called "Hollywood meets Bollywood" and so Wyclef called Aadesh on to the stage. Aadesh played the Latin drums, Wyclef played the Congo and there was another African drumset that one of the band members played....and they almost did a jugalbandi! The new song is awesome....hip hop and bhangra are a potent mix anyways and Aadesh was really really good....he hit notes Wyclef had to scream for...and he even made Wyclef sing some Punjabi!

And then of course, he ended the day with 'Gone till November'....which everyone sang along with...it was a fantastic end to the night! What got the energy going was that he was constantly jumping, moving on the stage, moving amongst the crowd (and I touched his bicep...yayyy!!! lol), dancing on top of the speakers, dancing on top of HRC's sofa-tops, pulling the "ladies and fellas" on to the stage. At one point, he saw a man smoking and he said.."That man is smoking during the concert!", acted offended and pulled him up on the stage and asked him to dance with him. That man was a total uncle types but he pulled it off and had fun...which is what it was all about!

So it was great stuff....the venue was perfect....I don't think a big ground like MMRDA would have been ideal coz not so many people here in Mumbai really listen to his music. And the people who did come...were people who knew him and enjoy his music. I read reviews on how the gig in Bangalore was not managed well (Here: http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Apr182008/metro2008041763217.asp ) but the one in Mumbai was great! There was a lot of crowd and it got really hot, but I haven't been to a single concert where that doesn't happen!

Finally....thanks to my friend Siddhesh who got free passes from his company Unilever (I'm sure he'll be crazy happy if he sees me branding for HUL lol) and took me along. And Mandar who bought me most of my drinks coz the bar was not accepting cards when I asked and I wasn't really carrying any cash. To more gigs like this one...cheers!