Up Close and Personal...

Oh. My. God!

Saturday night, I was 16 again... for about 4 hours. CJ and I went to the Up Close and Personal Concert featuring Chris Brown, Lil' Wayne, Ne-yo, Juelz Santana, and Dem Franchise Boyz and spent the entire time rapping, singing, dancing, and screaming like little girls. We had so much fun from the moment we got there and were entertained by Lil Xavier (a 14 yr old rapper?) who opened the show to the point where Chris Brown thanked everyone for coming out in song.

And in true form, we had some very memorable moments. For starters, the concert was held at the Nissan Pavillion which was literally an hour away from where we live, yet was billed as the DC venue. Then, the guy who was mc-ing the concert had us cracking up laughing with his rendition of "No (excuse me miss)," the song that you sing to the girl you're not trying to holla at. He even had the crowd singing the Myspace song..."What's your myspace, put me on your top 8!" (by the way, I will have to discuss this whole myspace thing in another blog soon).

We loved Juelz Santana, but I think it had more to do with the fact that he's cute and he had his little nephew come out and rap with him at one point than the fact that we actually knew his songs. I knew more than CJ, but still, other than the Whistle Song, Clockwork, his part in Oh Boy and some other songs that you probably know but wouldnt know the name to, his whole allure was the cuteness factor...lol.

Dem Franchise Boyz had us dancing and trying to sweat our cute hair out! These guys had whole dance routines and dancers with choreography and stuff; I was pleasantly surprised at how good their performance was.

Now Lil' Wayne... was great! (and that's not just because I'm a little biased) However, one of the more bizarre moments was during his performance, these two girls came to sit next to us and were so excited about Lil Wayne that they actually started crying! Now, I think I'm a pretty big fan, but you will not see me crying over this man. You'd swear he had just called them out in the crowd and asked them to meet him backstage the way they were acting. In fact, the whole crowd got riled up in his performance. I was just excited we didnt get trampled this time. (Thank God for small miracles.)

Ne-yo proved that he can sing, dance, grind on a planted audience member, be sexual without regard to the 12 yr olds in the crowd to see Chris Brown, and we ate it all up! I think I might have to go get his cd, cuz the boy was good. He and Chris Brown were the only ones with a real set on stage and he and his dancers worked it. At one point, after a "costume" change into some jeans with sparkles on the bottom and a black shirt, he came out of the crowd onto the stage singing. That drew a lot of comotion. And CJ and I think he secretly wants to be a Kappa (if he's not one already), cuz he had another costume change where he came out in red and white (I'm sorry, crimson and creme) and stepped with a cane... coincidence? I don't think so.

The star of the night, though, was Chris Brown. The boy brought the stage down! Now, I'm the first one to admit that he's just a younger version of Usher, but hey, you also gotta admit he's good at what he does. At one point, he stopped and did some songs sorta dressed as a modern (and slightly darker) Michael Jackson. He had the silver glove and everything and has us older folk jamming to Rock Wit Chu and other classic MJ songs. He crunked, he woo-ed the girls, he pumped his pelvis on the song Poppin, he slowed it down on Say Goodbye, and he finished up his performance with Run It and then Thank You. My only gripe was that Juelz didnt come back out for his part. Lil Wayne did on Gimme That, so Juelz should have too! I mean, isnt that what he was there for anyway????

Overall, it was a really fun night. I'm glad we went, even though my voice is now gone and I think my eardrums are slightly more sensitive than they were before. Kinda reminds me of the Scream 2 Tour with b2K, IMX, and Bow-wow, but a little bit more raw.