Tuesday, August 23, 2011

No, I did not brush my teeth with Jack Daniels to pregame.. or did I?

On Sunday night I went to a Ke$ha concert for the first time. First I want to note that when I said those exact words to one of my co-workers, his response was: "What's a Ke$ha?" Alright, moving on.

I was originally meant to go with my best friend Katiri, but her task force's mission in the Middle East was extended. My friend Gio, Katiri's boyfriend, stepped up to the plate and offered to go with me, though he had no intention of getting glitter/hipsterized and dancing all night like Katiri would have. I did try to pressure him once or twice into wearing a shade of purple glitter that would have gone great with his dark complexion, but to no avail. Honestly, I just appreciate that he was willing to be a good sport so I wouldn't miss the concert. So I modestly glittered myself (I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but TRUST me there could have been more glitter involved), just my eye shadow, nails, and a sparkly shirt, and off we went.

She performed at the George Mason University Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA, which is their ginormous basketball arena. The crowd was surprisingly tame, just lots of glitter, lots of slutty 14 year olds (seriously, how are parents letting them out in these outfits??), and lots of people who didn't dress up at all. I was expecting a little more craziness, but maybe part of it was the fact that it was a Sunday night. The crowd wasn't just tame in appearance, but I'll get to that later.

LMFAO was the opener, and we waltzed in about halfway through their set (is the correct term still a "set" when I'd rather call it "catchy auto-tuned synthesized repetition" than actual music?). I will say they had a great energy and the crowd was eating up their many shenanigans, including a dancing panda and the removal of many pairs of pants (don't worry Mom and Dad, they were all wearing boxers). While I did rock out to the couple of songs I knew (okay.. by a couple I mean one), I honestly spent more time being entertained by the life-size blow-up zebra that was bouncing and gyrating its way through the crowd below. I was for the most part unimpressed, that is until Ke$ha began, and then I quickly realized I wanted LMFAO back.


As soon as Ke$ha started her first song of the night (Sleazy, also the name of her tour), I could immediately tell something didn't sound right. A couple songs in, my concerns were affirmed when Gio leaned over to me and said, "does her voice sound really high-pitched to you?" He went on to theorize that the mic was either poorly or incorrectly autotuned, and I have to agree because it almost sounded as if she had just inhaled helium. Now one of Ke$ha's main appeals is that large portions of her songs are a sexy/sleazy/bitchy-party-girl style of talking rather than actual singing, but that whole aspect is lost when her mic makes her sound like a chipmunk.

My other main complaint was that I was unexpectedly and dissapontedly bored at times. This could have resulted from a number of personal factors: it was a Sunday night, lack of Katiri meant I wasn't rocking out as hard, I wasn't wearing enough glitter.. Actually, scratch all that, I'm pretty certain it was Ke$ha. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was kind of expecting people dressed as unicorns to come on stage and get shot with rainbow beams (if you don't get that reference, go here). And if not that, I at least expected Ke$ha to do something more entertaining than a few slutty dance moves and a glitter gun. And before you say "Now Kaytee, you're just projecting your much too high expectations as a biased reflection of how she actually did," I should mention that I was not alone in this sentient. The majority of my section and the sections around me were sitting through much of her performance. Yes, sitting! Sitting during songs where no one should be sitting! It was actually quite nice because it allowed us to sit and still be able to see. But the point is I shouldn't have wanted to sit.

That said, I actually did have a good time overall. The highlight of the performance was when she brought an adorable gay boy from the audience on stage, had him tied to a chair with Saran wrap and duct tape, and used him as a prop during "Grow a Pear." I also had fun dancing with Gio (yes, he even danced a little bit!) and playing with the cute sparkly Ke$ha tiger he bought for Katiri!


I'll leave you with this fun fact about Ke$ha: she got a perfect score on her SATs. Mull over that for a while.

2 comments:

  1. How disappointing! I had actually read a review of her tour which basically said, "Don't bother". So I don't think it was just the mic. But if I want chipmunks, I'll stick with Simon, Theodore and Alvin.

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  2. HI KAYTEE,

    I think you did expect too much from this KE$HA concert. All these new female artists dance like BRITTNEY SPEARS & it does get boring at times. I'm glad you had a good time nonetheless.

    STEVE

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