When I heard the announcement that the King of Rap, Eminem, was headed to South Africa, I knew I had to be there. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no hard-core Em fan, but I do own two or three of his records and have a ton of his tracks on my iTunes. The date – March 1st and I was finally on my way to the Johannesburg leg of Eminem’s Rapture tour.
Now before we go into details, I just feel the need to mention the fact that I am NOT a Red Hot Chili Pepper fan but they blew me away at their show last year so don’t tell me I’m being biased and all that bullshit. Now before we get onto the bad, let’s chat a bit about the good, yeah? First of all, big ups to Primedia on a fantastic event. I’ve never been to a show at Ellis Park before and it was actually quite pleasant. I arrived there via the Gautrain service, which for one night only, extended it’s operating hours. The trains were clean and as I got off at Park Station, I was pleasantly surprised to see buses waiting to take us to the venue. Being allowed to drive in the bus lane, I arrived at the stadium about 25 mins after leaving home.
Unfortunately, I missed the opening acts for the show but I didn’t really mind. Eminem’s intro started at 9 pm sharp which really impressed me but as the first words came out his mouth, I realised that as usual, stadium sound sucks ass (unless you’re in Golden Circle of course). Em started off with a few songs I wasn’t really familiar but damn, did I sing out loud when Love The Way You Lie started singing. Em has this presence around him and he literally lit up that whole stadium when he spoke to the crowd and that was so amazing to see.
The show, however, disappointed me a lot and I kept on thinking how pissed off I would be if I paid R1250 for a Golden Circle ticket. After the show I posted on my Twitter and Facebook that Eminem should be ashamed by the performance he put on that night. Some of the comments I received were “Were we at the same show? Thought it was awesome!” and “Dude you are insane. MM showed that he is an expert showman and an incredible and still relevant artist. Get lost in the moment instead of over analyzing. That show was amaZing!”
Now, I must admit that I do over analyse things but I am an entertainment journalist and that’s the reality of my job. Okay, we’ve spoken about the shitty sound so I’m not going to touch on that anymore. Eminem is super lucky to have such a fantastic collection of music to his name and it really saved his ass. Em had the support of a guy called Mr Porter on stage with him who seemed to take over the show. He sang a lot to cover up for Eminem and acted like it was his show – and it really got super annoying at some stages.
That brings me to the next point, Eminem’s backing tracks were so high he might as well lip sync the whole show. Now sure, I understand that is Eminem’s sound but we’re paying hard earned money and he literally pulled a Chris Brown on us. I would have forgiven him if it was just a song or two but unfortunately, it was the whole damn show.
Speaking about pulling a Chris Brown, what the fuck was up with Eminem singing only a verse and a chorus of most of the tracks he performed on the night? Yes, I get he wanted to fill as many tracks as he could in, but let’s be honest, the show lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes and he could have easily pushed for a two hour performance if he wanted to do justice to his hits. That really annoyed me and proved that just like Chris Brown, who did the same thing in December 2012, Eminem is a lazy performer.
Now, y’all are going to hate me for this but Eminem’s rap was just too monochrome for a full performance, so I loved that the backing singer treated us to hits such as Love The Way You Lie, The Monster and Stan as it sort of broke that a little bit.
I love a live show and I guess I would still say I enjoyed myself but the lack of vocals and the laziness in Eminem really put a huge damper on the show – which is a shame.
I did, as mentioned already, enjoy some of the show and put some of my favourite parts in a video which you can watch below. I would love to hear more from you guys so drop me a message in the comments section or holler at your boy on Twitter.
Please feel free to comment, share or tweet me @ElBroide
Hey man, great review and I must say I am a huge eminem fan and enjoyed the show immensely ! Although I was disappointed when he didn’t play some of his greatest classics ever such as “mocking bird” and “ass like that” . I was also disappointed as I felt the back up singer lip sang the whole time and yes Em did Lip sync most of the time which most other people couldn’t here buy I do admit I have a very fine ear when it comes to that and did pick it up immediately. But having said all that the show was amazing, great vibe and over all a good party !