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Review opens with gunfire, sound of woman screaming and shell casings hitting pavement.
In the end, it’s human nature to like things that are bad for you. So naturally, when the buzz for gangsta rap-master 50 Cent’s Corel Centre gig grew so loud that even Liberal MP Dan McTeague tried to prevent him from coming, I knew that I had to see this show.
But when the former crack dealer’s current crew members Tony Yayo and M.O.P. weren’t allowed across the border because of prior convictions, it seemed that the tour was in real trouble, which 50 Cent knows about in spades.
So once at the arena, I wasn’t surprised that I had to go through more security than at an American airport. Organizers beefed up their crowd control with more than 50 extra cops and 150 private security guards.
Surprisingly, in the end, the drama surrounding the concert was much higher than anything 50 Cent, a.k.a. Fiddy, mustered on stage in a two-hour blowout of hip-hop’s hottest showman.
Fiddy opened the show with a cheesy cinematic homage to himself, beginning with the trailer for his biographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin’, a montage of celebrity endorsements and news footage of Fiddy’s near-death in 2000, when he was shot nine times.
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In case you forgot his criminal past and edgy, bad-boy allure, there was no end to the lock-and-load gunfire on the sound system last night. Fiddy, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, obviously revels in his dangerous celebrity.
But the only explosives on stage last night were the pyrotechnics that producers use when the show needs some heavy visual distraction. I mean, how many times can you watch a movie trailer?
None of studio smarts that made his last two albums, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and last year’s The Massacre, were evident at the Corel Centre in a show that seemed largely impersonal and on autopilot.
Accompanied by a DJ and Lloyd Banks, the sole member of his G-Unit crew to be allowed over the border, Fiddy strutted and posed his way through a canned show with some of the worst sound I’ve ever heard at the arena.
What came through loud and clear was the shallow limits of Fiddy’s stage persona. He played the gangster to the hilt — someone should remind him that using too many F-bombs and mother-Fs and calling women names of garden tools as often as he does only desensitizes his audience to his dangerous character.
But eventually, he managed to direct hostilities at just about everyone — women, homosexuals, cops, you name it.
Surprisingly, 50 Cent seemed stiff for most of the performance. When a fan tossed a bra at him, he looked confused. Indeed, he didn’t loosen up until the encore, when he invited a fan on stage to pose with him and finally performed a little strip-tease before saying goodbye.
Sadly, that flash got one of the biggest ovations of the night.
For hardcore fans, the up-close-and-personal rap with Fiddy was obviously a thrill. But for those of us a little less star-struck and just looking for a funky musical experience, the gig was a disappointment.