Review: Christina Aguilera and others. Mhhhm
This kind of review makes everything worth it – three representers give you their take on the Unite of the Stars and Christina affairs:
First off it’s LEV – he went to the media gathering and was not at all impressed by his colleagues who seemed a little starstruck:
SHUT UP, STUPID.
What’s it like being at a shit-hot press conference featuring Christina Aguile…
ra, Westlife, Deborah Cox, Diana Ross and Lucia Micarelli? I’ll tellya.
I’m going through the audio collected from the big Unite of the Stars press conference. I’m disgusted. Really, this was the hottest set of stars we’ve had in the country since the last 46664 and, as ever, the South African media blew it.
Typically, at one of these press conferences, each journo has one question. One shot. That’s it. Unless you’re one of the “favoured” journalist, in which case you might get two or three per celebrity. That in itself sucks, since the favoured journalists are more often than not sycophantic thicko’s. And what do said thicko’s choose to ask?
“What inspires you?” Or, in the case of Christina Aguilera, “how was the kiss with Madonna.” That was 3 years ago! She’s answered that question a billion times already!
It may seem like I’m being petty, but I desperately think that we should demand more of ourselves. I really don’t mind if they’re wasting their own time, but when it comes to a press conference, where we share the audio, stupid questions waste everybody’s time.
Screw’t, guys! Raise the bar. If you can find it out on the internet, if there’s only one possible answer (“What do you think about South Africa so far?” Who’s gonna say, “actually, it’s f*ing awful!”), if it’s just your attempt to suck up to a star (“How do you stay looking so young?”), or if we’ve heard it before, shut the **** up.
The celebrities went into auto-pilot, reading off their internal autocue (and who can blame them) and the South African media (for the most part) stood there dazed and breathless and wasting not only my time, but the time of all newspaper and magazine readers, radio listeners and TV viewers. One way to minimise the chance of suckiness would be to invite more of the alternative media. Let the mainstream use the audio. I’m sure the altpuppies won’t mind. And everybody will have a better product.
That said, well done to all the organisers and the publicists for setting up this opportunity. It was slick and tight and classy. Cheers. Hopefully next time, the media won’t blow it.
— Lev David is an independent writer and media consultant. Visit him online at LEVDAVID.
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Next up is your very own Sisiwami who went to the Altech dinner….
Eish… my guess was that there were 4000 people, seen as there were about 400 tables with at least 10 people per table… the set up was impressive, mainly because of the sheer spread of the room and the logistics involved. The concert itself was not our cup of tea at all. We were embarrased to see that some people still don’t trust Black South African presenters or musicians to showcase their music at a big event… all of the South African acts were white musicians and no diss to their talent, it just wasn’t good enough… Nianell, Danny K and Heinz… cough cough.
Ok there was the Soweto Gospel Choir that ‘supported’ the artists but with the sound not being great their voices were really soft and they definitely were ‘back-ups.’ Westlife were cheesy as always although Uptown girl woke us up a bit… Deborah Cox then lulled us into sweet moods with a sultry RnB performance… and then came Christina, who only sang one song. Luckily enough it was ‘Beautiful’ so she cut to the chase and gave us the song we were after, but one song was not enough! She then shared the stage with a drooling Alex Jay who had to coach her through a very badly read PR schpiel on HIV/AIds and orphans and Africa and charity blah blah… word of advice to the organisers, rather give people cards to read off – it’s fairly obvious when people bow their heads and stare at a screen on the floor and read in a monotone voice that they’re being prompted. Rather make it more obvious and don’t try to cover up.
To be brutally honest with you if it weren’t for the sprinkling of Black faces in the audience one could have mistaken themselves for being time-capsuled back to the the old umlungu regime, the room was dripping in old white money… As for the decadence of the auctions… we were blushing at the casual nature of some of the bidders calmly raising their hands to buy way-overpriced dodgy tickets to see Celine and other marvellous lahlah hockey sticks. We actually had to leave and so we missed the fabulous Diana Ross but we heard that she was incredible – having a great time and getting down with the crowds… seems like we missed the best.
We must congratulate them on their noble efforts to raise money for charity however the event needs to relook it’s demographics.
You guys need to get more soul at your events.
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Then NOXYRSOX went to the Christina concert the next night – she was less than impressed at the tardy approach – she just can’t handle the DOME:
Xtina definitely has the X factor. She sizzles on stage and that voice…WOW. But unfortunately, Xtina failed to give us the show we were looking for. Despite her awesome performances of Lady Marmalade, Dirrrty, Fighter and Beautiful, we didn’t get enough of her.
After about 8 songs, the songstress bid Joburg farewell and only came back for one encore performance, which was SO disappointing. We’d hardly got going when the lights came on and everyone made their way back home. It was 10.24pm and after waiting for an hour, Christina had only come on at about 9.20pm. Now when last did you go to a concert that was less than 2 hours long? Perhaps it’s because she’s such a superstar that she doesn’t feel the need to give more than a little bit of herself. I don’t know. The bottom line? All in all a disappointing show that I would have been seriously pissed off about if I had actually paid for my tickets (especially Golden Circle which was R400, eish, sorry about that). And for the last time – WE HATE NORTHGATE DOME!!!! THE SOUND SUCKS! Viva Ellis Park, viva!
