'I Love the 90s' brought R&B hits to Mohegan Sun Casino (review)
Updated: Sep. 03, 2017, 2:25 p.m. |
Chris Dondoros | Special to The Republican
UNCASVILLE, Conn. - Concertgoers were promised a party.
The "I Love the 90's: The Party Continues" tour stopped by the Mohegan Sun Arena on Saturday night, bringing a variety of acts ranging from TLC to Coolio center stage for a nostalgia-filled journey through, arguably, hip-hop and R&B's most beloved era.
But while the show was billed as an "arena-sized dance party," it was apparent early on in the night that concertgoers could expect an arena-sized marketing machine heavy on vague feelings of nostalgia and light on content.
With a pair of DJ's spinning the decade's finest R&B for the hour prior to the performance, C+C Music Factory featuring Freedom Williams took the stage first.
However, the group proved to be nonexistent due in part to Williams - who served as lead vocalist on "Gonna Make You Sweat," one of the decade's biggest dance hits - possessing trademark rights to the name and subsequently using it to promote the night's forthcoming acts.
The first of these forthcoming acts would be Color Me Badd, an all-male, denim-clad trio best-known for 1991's "I Wanna Sex You Up."
Despite performing the night's first cohesive set of actual songs, including a cover of Blackstreet's "No Diggity," Color Me Badd proved to concertgoers that, unfortunately, every band on Spotify and Pandora-curated 1990s hip-hop playlists have back catalogues stretching beyond one or two "hits."
Biz Markie would follow up with a surprisingly brief, three-song set.
Perhaps best-known for "Just a Friend," ironically released in 1989, Markie proved to be one of the night's highlights, performing exactly what concertgoers expected to hear while slouched in front of an unused drum set and 1990s-approved neon logo.
While Markie's self-deprecation seemed like a tough act to follow, Montell Jordan proved himself to be up to the task.
Taking the time to interact with the crowd at length and adamant about taking the nearly-full Mohegan Sun Arena crowd "down memory lane," Jordan would do just that, performing "I Like" and pulling double duty as co-lead vocalist Slick Rick, Sisqo's "Incomplete," which Jordan wrote, and Jordan's own hit song, 1995's "This Is How We Do It."
But with momentum finally picking up, it was Coolio who would leave concertgoers in a saxophone-clogged haze after an equally brief set.
With much of the night feeling like an advertisement for Universal Attractions Agency's upcoming "Ship-Hop Cruise" featuring the same artists, except on a cruise ship - the 54-year old Compton native took to the stage with the night's first live band, devoting more than half his set to a lengthy saxophone solo along with introductions to band members.
The night was capped off with one of the biggest selling acts of the 1990s, TLC.
Dormant in the studio since 2002, when Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes was tragically killed in a car accident at the height of the group's career, surviving members Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas' grandiose stage show featuring a live band augmented by electronic samples (including Lopes' vocal tracks) and backup dancers felt like too little, too late.
Blowing through shortened versions of songs both new and old, from 1999's "Fanmail" to 2017's "It's Sunny," the duo would save the best for last, including "No Scrubs" and "Waterfalls," ending an uneven night of music on a high note.