Lauryn Hill: "You Might Win Some, but You Just Lost One....."

Or, maybe you lost a whole bunch.  At least one. Here's what you can't do: you can not charge people $80 for a ticket to your concert that isn't even held at an awesome locale.  I'm fine with The Showbox SoDo - there's nothing wrong with it, but there's also nothing great about it. It's a warehouse with a bar in it.  It's huge and flat and you can't see over the tall people's head because the floor is not tapered.  It's just a big room with a stage.  Nothing much to love, lots to not love.

Here's the next thing you may want to consider, and I'm no expert, but you've been in show business for a while now and should know that the making your fans wait after the opener thing is a gimmick that only works to a certain extent.  There is a point of diminishing return.  There is a point where your positive trend line on the graph will start to swoop back down again, and swiftly. I'm pretty sure that point came about 45 minutes into our wait.

Sure, Dead Prez was awesome.  I love Dead Prez.  People in the crowd loved Dead Prez.  We were all riled up and bouncing around and screaming.  This is what you want as a headliner, right? For your opener to get everyone jacked up on freaking out?  And then, when the DJ came out afterward to kind of keep the juice going, it worked.  We were loving the kickback, 90's-hip-hop that he was rocking - it was awesome.  But, definitely after an hour of that went by, you probably should've started the fucking show. 

Definitely, no matter who you ask, after a full two hours of making us wait, packed together like factory farmed chickens in a musty den, you probably should've come out and at least said, "Hey guys, I love you, I'll be getting started as soon as I can but......." But something.  Something has to be said to your loyal fans who have devotedly followed you around, out of the 90's and into the 2010's.  Unless you're a stuck up, Hollywood-celebrity-style, self involved snatch.

But, if you want to piss off the people who literally made you who you are in the world of celebrity and fame, then you can come out after a longer than two hour wait without even acknowledging it and just start singing badly, with your bad sound system, with your earring falling off and go on like your crowd isn't booing you off the stage.

And now, I hate you - it's official.  I can't hear your music, music which I once loved, without remembering how poorly you think of us working class people who forked over the equivalent of hours of labor in order to watch you treat us like crap. And that's just "All That I Can Say."