Rhianna Concert, a big two thumbs down.

Friday of last week, Rhianna actually headlined BluesFest. Let's not even discuss the strangeness of this decision, I mean, Nelly Furtado doesn't get to headline, but Rhianna, who has released about 4 songs does? What's that about.
The tickets for the concert were about $35 a pop, and thank goodness we didn't bother with any of that. Again, we camped out just outside the fence to enjoy the show, any closer might have actually made me violently ill.

To put it bluntly, the show was horrible. Rhianna lipsynced throughout much of the show, to a very obvious backup track. The times she did bother to sing, it wasn't to the main track of the song, but rather to what would be considered backup tracks, leaving us all pretty annoyed and confused.

She forgot half the words to her current single "Unfaithful" and left the stage about 4 times in a 40 minute set. During these 'breaks' her DJ played the music of other musicians, her competitors really, and encouraged the audience to get a little louder- we didn't really, we were busy stifling yawns.

At least Rhianna seemed to know where she was, she used the word Ottawa about 25 times throughout the show, saying things like 'how you doing Ottawa?'. I'm thinking perhaps she had written the city name on her hand so she didn't forget.

Needless to say, we were not impressed, and it's pretty sad when after not even paying for a show, you can't even sit through it. We left before it was over.

Here are some blurbs from the Ottawa Citizen, I have to say that this specific review doesn't really give the essence of the crappiness of the show, I have read much more scathing reviews of this particular show:

Her show was a Disney-esque choreographed fantasy of non-stop hip-swivelling, sassy attitude and personal endearments and a string of funky, sugar-free hits, such as We Ride, Unfaithful, Kisses Don't Lie and the Soft Cell-inspired SOS that, even by hip-hop standards, was surprisingly forgettable.The music took a back seat to fashion as Rihanna had a hard time singing in tune, while her dancing was little more than strutting back and forth. Meanwhile, her hyperactive DJ kept telling us to make some noise, which I thought Rihanna was already doing sufficiently well on her own throughout a dreary and embarrassingly short 40-minute set.

It's not that every one of the hundreds of musicians who play Bluesfest have to have a blues pedigree, but what claim the bubblegum queen has on blues, or music for that matter, is beyond me. For an event as predictably trustworthy as Bluesfest, last night's presentation was a broken promise.

Don't worry Rhianna, you'll get another chance to impress Ottawans (is that what we're called?). This week it was announced that Rhianna will be opening for the Black Eyed Peas in September at Scotia Bank Place. I think Rhianna is much more 'opener' material than 'headliner'.