World Cup Kick Off Concert

I'm pretty sure that more of you who watched it last night will agree that the World Cup Kick Off Concert was fantastic, and i can not think of a better way to start what is possibly the biggest competition in the world. Those of you who watched the whole program will have seen the FIFA president say "football is not only a game, football is connecting people" which I think is very true. This can be said about all sports of course, everybody loves to get involved with sport, whether its football, athletics, cricket, tennis the list is endless, and they all bring people together. But the world cup is something different altogether. The world cup brings everyone together, every country wants to be involved, people travel for thousands of miles to support their country and the atmosphere around a world cup is like nothing else. And that was so clear in the concert last night, with the people of Africa celebrating the world cup finally coming their way, the pride and excitement was clear to see on everyones face. I also loved the variety of acts that the concert had, and the incredible musicianship that every act showed. Everybody put on an excellent performance, and I'll say something else, it was really refreshing to watch a show where all the acts actually had backing bands, who were really playing. The amount of hard work and rehearsal that everyone had put in was obvious and made for a great performance from everyone.

Atmosphere

I have already mentioned about how the World Cup in itself brings with it an incredible atmosphere. But in all the gigs, concerts and festivals I have watched and been to in my life, I have never seen so many people jumping and dancing so jubilantly. Africa really know how to celebrate like nobody else is the world. The vibe that I got from, unfortunately, watching on my sofa at home, is that this is one of the most exciting things to happen if Africa's history. Now I now that Africa has a huge history, and many incredible things have happened there over hundreds of years, but last night, I don't think that any of that was on anyone's mind. All that anyone was thinking about was that people were coming to their country, from all over the world, to watch the greatest players in the world compete for the biggest trophy in football. And that was the feeling that was driving everybody last night.

Performance

Every act was amazing, but the top performers for me were Angelique Kidjo, Shakira, Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys and K'Naan. Its easy to say that everyone put on a great performance, because they really did. And i find it almost impossible to chose my favourite acts from the night because they all stood out in their own way. So I'm going to highlight a few of the acts which I really liked. Angelique Kidjo really stuck out to me, I've not listened to her before, but she has a really amazing voice, powerful and deep. The music that she plays makes it very hard not to smile, its up tempo, with plenty of percussion high in the mix which always puts a fun vibe on the sound and gets everyone moving. The backing band, particularly the brass in hers and John Legend's cover of "Move On Up", which was a highlight for me. I also was surprised and myself when I found that I was really enjoying the Black Eyed Peas set, a group which I haven't warmed to before. I found myself getting into their music as they were playing, I think this was mostly down to the fact that it was a real live performance with really musicians playing, not just them singing to a backing track. They really had a way of building the atmosphere all around the stadium and did very well.

There were also plenty of more traditional, African pop acts who I thought were excellent, none of which I have herd of before which made me feel very ignorant but acts which I really liked. The rhythm sections for these groups were just incredible, and the focus, for me, was more on the congas and percussing players than it was on the kit players because they really were incredible.

Another one of my top acts from the night was Juanes, a latin American player who is second in record sales to Shakira. I really liked this guy, his music had a really nice layed back feel and the band were really tight. This is the kind of music I would love to spend my life playing. You can clearly see that his band are his regular band, and have put in alot of time and effort into their performance. And to do that for a living would be my dream come true!

The whole thing was also very well organised and the stage crew were great. The sound was perfect, you could hear exactly what everyone was doing and the mix was perfect. Of course, this could just be because I was watching it on telly, the sound at the concert might not have been so good, but I like to think that it was! The on stage sound must have been good to as every band was very tight and therefore, could hear them selfs and each other properly.

Conclusion

For me, this was everything that a major concert should be. Real players, putting on a great performances, and the whole show had so much diversity and variety. They had acts that come from traditional african roots right through to major pop and rock starts and everyone got an incredible welcome. It was clear that everybody enjoyed performing and that the amazing atmosphere was felt by everyone in the stadium. And that is how every concert should be.