May 24th marked the start of the “Let love Rule Tour” featuring Tweet, Melanie Fiona and Ledisi. North Carolina jump-started the tour by playing host, in Raleigh at The Ritz with a second show in Charlotte at The Fillmore on the 25th.
Now I’m just gonna just jump into this and get the bad part out of the way so I can move on to the good part. The show was set to start at 8:00 with Tweet leading the way. Tweet was 45 minutes late. The crowd was going in. I heard things from how disrespectful it was, to someone even doing a light comparison to Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill (both notorious for being late to performances). When she finally came on, at 8:44, she performed “Oops Oh My”, the one I'm most familiar with, and another song from her debut album, Southern Hummingbird. In the area where I was standing, the crowd was not completely feeling the wait and as a result showed her little to no love. She tried to pull the crowd in, but it simply was not working. At the end of her second song, she looked to left wing and I can only assume they were telling her time was up as we heard her question them, “that’s it?” She apologized and said, "I gotta go y’all, they’re telling me that’s it, but I had more to give you". One person next to me said, “you should have been on time”. Ouch!
Okay now, for the good parts. Melanie came out and more than made up for what had happened….whether intended or not. Let me tell you, she belted her heart out and sang from her soul. I felt like she was preaching to someone, performing a full range of hits from 2009 on up, as she gave amazing renditions of hits like: It Kills Me, 4am, Fool For You and Wrong Side of A Love Song and I’m willing to bet it was received and we were there for it all.
Now for the phenomenal Ledisi. I mean words simply cannot fully express the power, range and depth of soul this woman possesses. I’ve seen her twice before, so I already knew and I was ready. As she worked her way across the stage shimmying and feeling ALL of herself, she belted out her hit, I Blame You ... gave us mad ad-lib with these spectacular scats and runs of which you really only get to experience when you catch her live. She’s beautiful… she graceful… she’s Ledisi. Sadly, I had to leave before the show was over, but what I saw in ten minutes was enough to satisfy the longing I had since I found out about the tour.
Overall the show was utterly fantastic. As I said Melanie, whether she intended to or not, more than made up for the lateness of the show. And with Ledisi capping it off, it was easy to forget to those first 45 minutes. Great work ladies.