News

Stand Up GH Concert: Good Show, Wrong Emcees

Published on May 29, 2012

Organizers of the just ended “Stand Up GH” concert, Imajin Advertising, had already proven to the whole Ghana beyond any reasonable doubts that they could indeed compete with leading event organizers in Ghana, even though they are new in the business with…

…their “Legends and Legacy Ball” which featured Charles Kojo Fosu aka Daddy Lumber last year.

The “Legends and Legacy Ball” will go down in history as one of the most well organized and well attended events in Ghana in 2011 and the only event that saw two former Presidents; John Agyekum Kufour and J.J. Rawlings and former first lady Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings sitting and dancing together.

Imajin Advertising set some standards but if the “Stand Up GH” concert which came off inside the Dome at the Accra International Conference last Saturday is anything to compare to their own standard, then they failed this time because of a simple wrong decision they took.

Right from initial stage of planning the event, the organizers had issues with the choice of International artistes to headline the concert.

Peacefmonline.com investigations revealed that it was supposed to be Sean Kingston and Keri Hilson but Sean Kingston had some outstanding problems with another events company in Ghana and according to sources, Sean Kingston cannot perform again in Ghana until those issues are sorted out.

They quickly had to look for a suitable replacement and so YMCMB artiste Bow Wow came into the picture. Publicity for the event started very slowly and intensified as the event date Saturday, May 26, 2012 approached.

A carefully selected line up of Ghanaian artistes including; Guru, Kwaw Kese, Mzbel, Edem, Chemphe, Kaaki, Buk Bak and Rana even raised the excitement and interest, for people to want to attend the event.

Keri Hilson and Bow Wow touched down in Ghana on Friday May 25 but they refused to attend a welcome party organized in their honour at the Silver Lounge on Friday night, and the organizers didn’t give the media any reason why they were not present when the Ghanaian stars had come to officially welcome them.

On the day of the event, attendance picked up rather slowly as most people came after 10pm. The show started with silky voice Chemphe and Rana, who put up a great performance with their dance moves.

Everything seemed to be going well until Emcees for the night were announced.

Ghanaian actor James Gardiner came on stage first as the main MC and immediately he introduced himself the whole exciting atmosphere in the auditorium and the attitude of the crowd changed.

In spite of his experience on Radio at Multimedia, hosting Television Programs and acting experience, good looking James Gardiner didn’t have the flair to drive the crowd right from the beginning, and this affected the whole event.

He spoke in a very soft tone on a show which is supposed to be a Hip Hop event, and he clearly showed that he was not cut for that kind of function. He mentioned Majid Michel’s name anytime he walked onto the stage, as though Majid was the only important person in the audience.

He later introduced his co-MC and it was none other than bad girl Nollywood actress Tontoh Dikeh. Aside the initial cheers from the crowd when she first walked on stage; Tontoh did not add anything to the show.

The Nigerian actress appeared on stage only twice and used every opportunity to showcase her attire. She even went ahead to advertise the name of the Nigerian fashion designer who made her dress.

“I’m going to blow your mind with my clothes”, she told the crowd, as she turned round several times for the audience to better assess her.

The two emcees indeed were very boring on stage and made it difficult for the audience to enjoy the show.

The show had an encouraging crowd of about 70% attendance, lighting on stage were ok, sound was on point, and stage design was great as it was expanded to give the artistes more space to perform.

Everything on the night was great aside the emcees who almost marred the flow of the show.

Kwaw Kese, Edem and Gruru had a three song back to back rotation; dance hall sensation Kaaki, Buk Bak all did their bit to entertain the crowd but the MCs could not complement their efforts.

Bow Wow performed with so much energy on stage, and left fans screaming for more. The rap star was happy to be in Ghana as he said on stage “I am very happy to be in Ghana. This is my first but this is definitely not going to be the last time”.

He interacted with the crowd intermittently expressing how excited he was to be in Ghana, adding that distance is not an excuse for most American artistes to refuse to come to Africa.

Keri Hilson also combined her smooth voice and sexy body to put up a very exciting interactive and intimate performance. Her two sexy female dancers kept the audience watching the performance from start to finish when she finally dropped her smash hit song ‘Knock You Down’, as her last song. Keri Hilson also tried some Azonto dance moves as the crowd screamed in shock. She stated on stage that she had been to over 8 different African countries but Ghana so far has been number 1.

The two International acts and all the Ghanaian artistes performed well to keep the crowd alive, with the exception of Mzbel who didn’t mount the stage for a reason yet to be known, but the emcees were almost invisible and somewhat irrelevant on stage.

One only wonders what factors the organizers considered before choosing James Gardiner and Tontoh Dikeh as MCs.

‘Imajin Advertising’ should consider more appropriate MCs for their future events as they are the face and main driving-force of the events. All in all, the “Stand Up GH” concert was a great show artistically and technically, with two boring MCs.

Source: Eugene Osafo-Nkansah/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana