Janelle Monáe @ Tripod - 12/1/10

Hello everyone! Now that it's December there's only 2 weeks left in the semester, which is 16 days! I can't believe it!

Since last Friday it has been snowing in Dublin. That's right:snowing. Normally it doesn't snow in Dublin, and if it does it's flurries that don't stick to the ground. And that doesn't come until January. But now it's been snowing heavily on and off for almost a week. Usually it rains a lot on and off, but now the rain has turned to snow. Since the Irish aren't quite used to these harsh conditions, transportation has slowed or been canceled. Also, the streets haven't been plowed and the sidewalks haven't been shoveled. The snow froze so I'm practically skating to class. And for some reason the Irish (especially the kids) like to throw snowballs at random people. I haven't been attacked yet, but most of my friends have.

Snowy view from my window

Last night I went to see Janelle Monáe at the Tripod. I found out that her Dec 19th Dublin show was changed to Dec 1st because she'll be in the States touring with Prince. When I read in Hot Press last week that she is playing the 1st I quickly bought a ticket as soon as I got home.

For those of you who don't know, Janelle is an R&B/Soul/Funk singer. She's highly influenced by Prince and James Brown. She always wears tuxedo-like outfits and rocks a pompadour. Her album, The ArchAndriod is a concept album about an andriod in the future.

The doors opened at 7:30 PM. I walked through snowy weather from Tisch to Tripod. Tripod is a medium-sized venue. When I got there I was so impatient for the show to start. People waited at the bar for the doors to the floor to open. A girl approached me and we started talking about how much we loved Janelle, and we kinda stuck together for the rest of the show because we were both by ourselves. When the doors opened we went straight to the front. Great spots.

The opening act was Brian Deady, a singer from Cork who had a great soul/funk sound. He only had his bassist with him, plus his MacBook to play the beats. He was pretty good, I liked him. First concert I've been to where I was able to dance and not worry about mosh pits and crowd surfers.

Brian Deady

Janelle went on after 9 PM. I was so pumped. One of her band members came up to introduce her, and then all her band members came on stage. They started out with "Dance or Die", and Janelle made an entrance with her two backup dancers. I screamed my head off when I saw her.

Janelle is such an amazing performer. I screamed at the top of my lungs for her. She's so cute too. It was my birthday so her band came out with a cake for her and we all sang "Happy Birthday" to her. She then performed "Tightrope" and got really emotional. She's also a great dancer too. I took some videos of her on my camera.

The best part was her performance of "Come Alive." She had everyone sing with her, then jumped right in the crowd. I was so close to her!

"Come Alive" was her last song before she ended her set. However, we weren't ready to let her go just yet. We screamed and clapped and cheered for an encore, and sure enough she came back! She was so happy and grateful. While she didn't sing two of my favorite songs ("Many Moons" and "Violet Stars Happy Hunting!") her show was so great. I'm glad I finally got to see her.

Here's the (low quality) videos I took. You can see Janelle in all her awesomeness.
"Sincerely, Jane": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WraEy-2lf74
"Cold War": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_uSd7CIe1w
"Tightrope": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq1llGThVVY
"Come Alive": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DiY5y3nSjI

Now, off to finishing that screenplay.