The Review: Janelle Monae Live

Janelle Monae preforming in Manchester, images by frank ralph

Yesterday started off as a typical day in London town, I woke up, showered, took my picture (lol), it was so cold yesterday i thought it might actually snow, work dragged, but alas I was buzzing, the reason a certain Miss Janelle Monae! Best friend, Mr Naturalbelle and myself rolled up to a bitterly cold Camden town to see Miss Monae at the round house.

along with around 500 others, a completely eclectic crowd, of teenagers, stylish 20 somethings, middle aged music lover's of all races, heights ect.....

naturalbelle crew

The opening act was cock and bull kid, a UK band with a feisty larger then life front woman, 'who on the night looked like she was channelling Billie holiday in a white dress and flower head band, stunning!) I couldn't tell if cock and ball kid were any good as the sound was a bit poor, I really couldn't hear her vocals over the thrashing band, but crowd seem to enjoy it. there were a few well known face's in attendance, such as Estelle and Bruno Mars.

The naturalbelle crew managed to secure a place at the side of the stage for the main event (great for seeing the show without getting crushed!). when Janelle or shall i say Cindy hit the stage it was feverish, her anchroids all dressed in monochrome (the girls all with matching pompadours), her andre 3000 alike guitarist practically masturbated with his guitar (he was fantastic!) and then Janelle, as breathtakingly beautiful as you would imagine commanded the stage from the first note she had us and she new it!
she did most of her well known song and alot from her new album, she sang 'smile' so perfectly that I'm sure some shed a tear. as soon as she hit us with her up tempo numbers such as tightrope and many moon's the roundhouse rocked! as everyone danced with sheer abandonment! there was definitely some weirdness, painting during one song and getting us all to sit on the floor telling us that 'she won't get up till we get down' and get down we did! but the weirdness just added to the production. gimmicks, effects, and lavishness were kept to a minimum some black and white balloons and confetti, were all we got in tern of tricks. however like the best artists she could have sat on the stage and sung the yellow pages, she is a true talent and a credit to our generation. I'm glad I caught her before the hype which is inevitable, last night I saw a woman who loved her craft and i hope that will never change.

Lastly at events such as these its always nice to meet natural belle follower's, I was excited to bump into Ebony from Naturallysexy.co.uk, she was lovely, really sweet and of course her hair looked fab!

I also ran into a young lady who's name I didn't catch, as I was checking my coat I heard her yell "I don't know your name but I love your blog!" lol thanks for that (comment below if that was you) sorry I didn't get a chance to chat.

What I wore