[AKA2D '91]

Hello all you fellow New Edition fans! I went to see En Vogue and New Edition last night at Oakland's Paramount Theatre, and.......THE SHOW WAS THE BOMB!! Let's go act by act.
En Vogue: En Vogue started it up. Now, there were only 3 of them, and one of them is a new girl (Amanda). AManda sang most of Dawn's parts, and Maxine's were split between Cindy and Amanda. However, the harmony was still tight just not the exact same harmony you heard on the albums. The outfits could have been better, but that really was my only complaint. THe ladies still look damn good (Cindy has 3 kids and hasn't put on an additional pound anywhere, and believe me in her outfit you would have seen it!). There were some microphone problems, but it was all good. They started it off with "My Lovin'" and sequed into some other of their hits. THey did a tribute to their favorite Divas(Best of my love, respect, tell me something good, square biz, i heard it through the grapevine (Gladys' version) and a few others). Sang Giving Him Something He can Feel (complete with a pseudo-Janet search for a brother to feel on during the song, but that didn't really come off as sexy, but forced to me (but I'm a girl so they weren't trying to impress me with that anyway!LOL!), Just Cant Stay Away, Hold On, Don't Let Go, and others. THey pretty much sang all their classic hits. They didn't sing any of the post-Dawn era songs at all (thank the lord!) They performed for about an hour. Crowd was into it, but not standing on their feet or anything.

NEW EDITION: OH MY GOODNESS!! They came out to Word to tha Mutha and had on these white shirts with black slacks. Shirts unbuttoned about half way down. Doing straight classic NE moves with a few updates (a little harlem shaking going on)!! They segued into Hit Me Off, Sorry (You're not my kinda girl). They used to be cute boys but now they are SEXY MEN!!! Even Ronnie Devoe (whom I always thought was horrible looking) was on stage looking sexy as hell. Smooth dancing (not that rhythm nation jerky movements that are soo popular now), smooth sounds...oooowwwwweeeee! After doing some more of their group hits, they took a minute to thank the fans and introduce themselves to the audience (like all these folks standing on their feet didn't know who was who! LOL!). When it came time to intro Ricky, they let him do his own, so he broke out with "hey ladies...can I talk to you for a moment. Tonight is gonna be show and tell, cuz my first name's Ricky, Last name's Bell!" and then set it off into When Will I see You Smile Again! From there it was a solo section break down with the rest of the group providing background harmonies. After Ricky, it was.....JOHNNY! Singing My My My! Oh must have learned something from Gerald LEvert in his LSG days, because Johnny is a straight up old school showman! He damn near took his shirt off, sung to this girl in the front row (who got to kiss him on the lips, the lucky bastard!) ran all around the stage to the point that one of the NE members yelled on the mike "Do The Damn Thing Johnny!" (which by the way was the name of the tour: the Do The Damn Thing Tour.). He was so great, and then everyone in the audience is like, who is going to follow that? SO Ralph smooth self, gets up and does Sensitivity and Ronnie and Ricky help him out with some smooth choreography on the hook. After that, we thought we had done all the solo stuff and then BBD broke out with Do Me, complete with video moves during the chorus and yelling of Smack it up flip it rub it down oh no, from the audience! After that, they did Can You Stand The Rain, and then the showstopper was If It ISn't Love (they broke out the entire choreography from the video!!). THey also did their old songs: Candy girl, popcorn love, mr. telephone man, is this the end, count me out. They even went old school for a minute and did it with one of those one stand 5 mic setups (like the one that was used in the movie the Temptations if y'all saw it).

Bottom line is this: YOu will not be disappointed. If you love NE, then you need to be at this show!!! The moves were smooth, the songs sounded great, and the vibe in the joint was hype. No fights, everyone just singing along and dancing (cuz, no one was sitting when NE came on) and screaming on cue. I was worried about En Vogue messing up my songs because of the new chick and only having 3 instead of 4 so one part of the strong harmony would be missing, but those girls did the damn thing too!! I LOVED IT!! It was a great show. I wish they did two shows out here I would've gone again!

They said expect a 20th anniversary tour next year, WITH BOBBY, so keep your eyes out for that. I've never seen them with Bobby, so that might be fun, as long as BBrown actually shows up.

This is from an email I received.