Now that was...something.

Last night’s free Lauryn Hill concert in Brooklyn was truly one of the strangest performances I’ve ever seen. And, judging by today’s blog response, the question of whether she’s half-crazy or half-sane will not be resolved any time soon…I guess we all see what we want to see…Here’s my view:

After digging Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s unfadeable crowd-stalling styles, hearing the longest and most incoherent spiritual invocation I’ve ever witnessed, hearing the staff of every Brooklyn Appleby's introduce themselves on stage for some reason, nodding through Sean Kingston rapping along to Jay-Z’s "Takeover" for some reason, and seeing one of our era’s leading young feminist intellectuals almost hit a cop, it was time to prepare for Ms. Hill’s entrance.

The band got it going. Now, people who know me know I take a hard line on band-vamping: Up to 3 minutes = excellent sense of showmanship; 3 minutes and over = artist locked in bathroom. No exceptions. OK, one exception: when I saw Willie Colon in downtown Brooklyn last summer, he drove his SUV right up to the stage and jumped out, trombone in hand, and joined the band, which had been playing for about 5 minutes. "Sorry I’m late," he explained after the song ended, "my cat fell off the couch."

Anyway, the band took solos for about ten minutes, all the while craning their necks toward stage right for any sign of L-Boogie. Eventually, Lauren hit the stage looking and acting like the love child of Liza Minelli and H.R. from Bad Brains, which is not necessarily a bad thing. They both know how to put on a show, after all.

I did not take this picture:

Basically, about seventy-five percent of her performance consisted of punk rock versions of Bob Marley songs, which would have been excellent...if that was what she intended. But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I mean, seriously, she spent the first 30 seconds of nearly every song urging the band to speed up, which suggests that what she was going for was not so much "fast" as "faster". When the band approached the desired tempo, she would then scream the lyrics as quickly as she could, as if to get them out of the way.

This is how the crowd reacted:

People started walking out almost immediately, which I thought was strange, considering that they had just spent three hours waiting for the show to start. But Brooklyn audiences know what they want, and they know when they’re not getting it.

But here’s the weird part: at several points in the show Lauryn caught a groove, slowed down, and just completely rocked the crowd. I’ve never seen anybody gain and lose and regain and re-lose an audience like that. It was like twenty minutes of folks walking out, followed by five minutes of absolute adoration, followed by another twenty minutes of people on the verge of booing, followed by another five minutes of transcendent bliss. I have no explanation, that’s just how it was.

She left the stage for a moment (Joe Twist rule #354: Roadies not dismantling equipment = encore), and soon returned for a nine-song encore that had us sprinting toward the stage. Two identically-dressed guys were standing on chairs in front of us, and when they turned to talk to each other, I realized it was the Twins, Keith and Kevin, who are considered to be the first b-boys ever. Ever. They just happened to be standing in front of me at the Lauryn Hill show.

Analyses and a songlist can be found at sherealcool. Analyses without songlist at Conny Kate.