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There were so many things wrong with this gig!

…None of which involved Ne-Yo.

I don’t really do ‘R&B’ gigs and the ones I do, do are pretty specialist (i.e. Alicia Keys) but I stay away from the Donnell Jones, Ginuwine, Jagged Egde type gigs – with good reason. Firstly, I don’t really dig that kinda thing and secondly – the crowd they draw in are just…simply put…butterz!

Honestly, that whole “slow jamz-west end” type crowd is not what it’s about. My goodness. The audience were just so, so…chavvy! It was wrong on so many levels.

*The above [obviously] doesn’t apply to everyone who attended. However, if you’re offended by my observations, the likely hood is that you were the type of person in question. Boi’d*

Having said all that, let me get down to business. Ne-Yo has delivered a really good, solid R&B album. As you know, I always moan about the state of post-1990 R&B and so when a good album like “Year of the Gentleman” drops, I jump pon’ it. I’ve never really been that into Ne-Yo, but have liked his singles (”Because of You” was a tune!). However, when he dropped “Closer” I really began to pay attention. Then we kept getting all those leaks (all of which can be found after a nice search of PinBoardBlog.com) all of which impressed me – especially “Miss Independent” and it’s subsequent remix featuring Jamie Foxx & Faboulous.

With that in mind, when I was offered a couple free tickets to see him during his London date at Hammersmith Apollo, I accepted – of course. My homie Taio Cruz kept the audience (ladies) entertained with a cool set. It was great to see the crowd respond to his music the way they did. He dropped “I Can Be”, “Like a Star” and “Come On Girl” and the entire audience lapped it up often singing the words for him. That’s a good look, especially for someone who’s doing what he’s doing in the UK. Not to mention, he’s a really nice dude! (LOL).

Not long after, Ne-Yo appeared on stage and did what he do. The mans a great performer. There’s no denying it and to his credit, I didn’t hear his voice fail once. The control he has on his vocals is serious! He’s got a really smooth tone which actually doesn’t come across on CD as well as it does live. It’s really easy to forget how many ‘hits’ Ne-Yo has had in the past few years, but he reminded us all when he dropped tunes like “So Sick”, “Sexy Love”, “Can We Chill”, “Do You” & ”Because of You”. Remember he only came out in 2006 – that’s pretty impressive? The highlight performance for me however was of course “Closer” [footage below], which surprisingly wasn’t his closing number, that honour was left to a track called ”Nobody” off his new album (a great track, but not really the best song to end with?).

PinBoard Footage:

Continue reading the review after the jump GO!