Ludacris is clever, damn clever!
Concert Review
David Unsworth
Issue date: 3/3/04 Section: Cadenza
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Upon arrival, we walked up to the balcony where the hometown crowd was already going nuts for Chingy. Having never before heard Chingy, I was blown away by the show he put on. Of course, it could have been the margaritas and Jagermeister that I pounded beforehand, but listening to his raucous yet refined performance made me want to tear some shit up. In fact, the entire balcony was tearing the place up. With the exception of a Phish show, I have never seen so much audience enthusiasm.
Chingy ripped through such treats as "He's Herre," "Gettin It" and "Represent," along the way whipping the crowd into a frenzy with allusions to St. Louis. At one point, in a thinly veiled expression of disdain for our beloved/reviled President, one of Chingy's associates invited audience members to "raise your middle finger to George Bush." Looking down on the floor from above, it appeared as though they liberally obliged. I wasn't quite sure what the stated motivations for the protest were (really bad echo in the Pageant), but it's always fun to mix music, politics, and alcohol.
Particular commendations are due to the evening's spotlight operator, who was faced with the daunting task of shining his luminous circle upon the rapper, through a contingent of drugged up fans dancing in the front of the balcony. Concluding his set with "Right Thurr," Chingy left, leaving everyone in a state of frantic anticipation for Ludacris. The crowd was like a nuclear bomb waiting to explode. As he emerged, one woman got so energetic that she began wildly flailing her arms with apparent disregard to those around her. But rather than cry about how her elbow spilled my cosmopolitan all over me, I exulted in her charisma.
There is no comparison between driving around and screaming out the words to "Roll Out" in the car with your friends, and then actually seeing Atlanta's greatest treasure in the flesh. You can't just sit there and listen to his music; it demands a response. Ludacris always seemed to have the crowd in the palm of his hand. His ear-shattering renditions of such masterpieces as "Southern Hospitality," "Move," "Act a Fool" and "Stand Up" delighted my suburban sensibilities with lyrics such as "Mouth full of platinum/ Mouth full of gold/ Forty glock cal keep your mouth on hold" as well as "You think twelve gon catch me, Gimmie a break, I'm super-charged with the hide-away license plate/ It seems they wanna fingerprint me and gimmie some years/ They'll only get one finger while I'm shifting gears."
