The Way I See It

Once upon a time on a very hot and humid Saturday summer afternoon, I dragged my boyfriend to a Raphael Saadiq concert. What I like about my boyfriend is that he's pretty open to being dragged to concert after concert because, as a concert newbie, he always takes it as an experience to learn more about music, whereas many of my friends aren't really about musical exploration and, unless there's free booze, start to look bored after a while. I guess I've been a Saadiq fan from way back: I distinctly remember spending a summer at my grandparents' house enjoying the wonders of MTV, and my cousin diving for the remote control to turn up the volume whenever Tony Toni Tone's "It Feels Good" video came on because it was HER FAVORITE SONG!!!! I was also vaguely familiar with Saadiq's other musical outing, Lucy Pearl, alongside an ex-En Voguer, best known for "Dance Tonight."

For some time now, Raphael's been pursuing a solo group, which finally reached my consciousness when I kinda sorta stole my dad's copy of The Way I See It (sorry, Dad, but it's the best gift you never gave me!) Chock full of Motown-esque retro throwbacks (and the obligatory Stevie Wonder cameo), I was instantly in love because it was incredibly catchy with a definite modern edge. Some Motown love songs sound downright chaste and outdated-ly old-fashioned by a standard of today's lyrics (sorry), but Raphael manages to take the old-school sound and make it relateable to today's audience.

The day of the show I implore to my boyfriend that we get to the show early so we get a good spot. We arrive at Central Park bright and early, emphasis on the bright. At 2PM, the sun is beating down on us and the show hasn't even started yet. I know my boyfriend despises being outdoors in extreme heat, but he was such a trooper. First, young rapper TK Wonder comes out. I thought her beats were really catchy, but, perhaps due to nerves, her rhymes were a little off-rhythm and her stage presence consisted mostly of stomping back and forth across the stage. I think she could be great in the future, but her most memorable feature were her awesome pants that I *think* were tie-dyed, with rainbow fringe along the sides. Amazingness.

Next up was soul singer Aloe Blacc, who I joked had styled himself similarly to a sartorially-restrained pimp from a blaxploitation film, with dark red bell bottom pants, a white button-up shirt and an animal print (perhaps zebra?) shirt. Seducing the audience with his smooth voice singing his own original tracks as well as covers like "My Cherie Amour," his most memorable performance was a bluesy version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" that pretty much drove the audience crazy.

By the time Raphael hit the stage, the audience were just pools of sweat lying on Summerstage's astroturf, trying to keep it together (my boyfriend waited forever on line to get bottles of water, only to be told that he would have to get on another line and wait again. Luckily we had to settle for some mango sorbet) but his energy was so high the audience couldn't help but match him. I was expecting a setlist tailored to his solo work, but he was awesome enough to cover his entire career. Hearing "It Never Rains (In Southern California)" transported me back 20 years to a memory of me singing that song in the back of our rental van during a family vacation to (a rainy) Florida. A vision in a white suit, Raphael could no longer maintain the appearance of feeling as cool as he is, and soon peeled off his layers as he sweat right along with the crowd. And it must be noted that his backup singers, one male and one female, put in nearly the same effort as Saadiq plus added dance moves. The female singer all but bared her soul with her voice during her solo for "Just One Kiss." Although he performed a lot of medleys of his older songs, just hearing snippets of "The Blues" made me just want to stop everything and do The Running Man. Unfortunately, Saadiq didn't perform my favorite song from The Way I See It, "Staying In Love," I walked away a happy girl and with newfound respect for a performer who gives everything, even when it feels like an inferno outside.