M.I.A. at the 40 Watt (Athens, GA) 9-19-05

I'm lazy, so I'm pretty much just gonna copy and paste from my LJ.

M.I.A. last night was amazing. If someone tells you that she isn't good live, don't listen to them, 'cause they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. She had a packed 40 Watt jumping up and down and singing their heads off to her songs.

Akeem picked me up from the North Ave. station around 7:30ish. we got to Athens a little after 9. There's was already a long line outside of the 40 Watt which I expected. But we got in quick enough and found a good spot near the front. Most of the people there, it seems, had come from outside of Athens (there were a lot of Atlanta people there) and while the crowd seemed small at first, it got bigger and bigger as time started to pass.

There was one opening act called Spank Rock who were from I believe Baltimore. They consisted of a DJ, a Hype man, and this skinny black guy rocking a fedora and an old school track jacket. There first song was I believe called Put that Pussy on Me. Yes. You read that correctly. I think it threw everyone off when he started singing about that particular part of the female body. But they were actually fun to watch, and got the crowd excited for M.I.A. I'm not too sure how long they played. These annoying girls got in front of us, and were all, "YAY! I love M.I.A.! I Can't wait til she plays Galang." But I tried to not let their ridiculous drunken yells bother me. They tried to give ma a beer as a peace offering for cutting in front of me but I declined.

I guess M.I.A. went on some time around 11:20 pm or so. The DJ came out (it wasn't Diplo) and spun for a bit, and then M.I.A. and her back up singer (Cherry I think her name is) came out and everyone just went nuts. By this point, the whole place was packed and I think she started off the show with her 16 bars in Bad Man, the final track on Missy Elliot's new album, The Cookbook. You just knew the rest of the show was going to be awesome after that. This is why M.I.A. puts on a good show:

She sounds exactly the same as she does on record which is awesome
She and Cherry are mad awesome winers (a west indian slang term that has to do with dancing)
She's all about crowd participation and gets close to the audience and has them shout back lyrics to her.
She rocks out just as hard as any band I've ever seen, with just a microphone.

So the songs she did were Pull Up the People, MIA, Fire Fire, 10 Dollar, Amazon, Bucky Done Gun, Sunshowers and of course Galang. I want to say that she did MIA over the beat for Bubba Sparxxx's Ugly (she asked the DJ if he had that) but don't quote me on that. It's weird, 'cause I'm usually really good about remembering stuff like that. But maybe I was just soo concerned with getting pictures (and I got some good ones). The DJ also kept ramdomly playing the sound bite of Kayne West saying that George Bush doesn't care about black people. The crowd especially loved that.

She did one encore: two songs, the last one being URAQT which I actually didn't think she'd play since it's not on the US version of Arular. I could tell that a lot of people didn't know that song, since the crowd wasn't screaming the lyrics to that one very loudly. I was of course, since it's been my favorite M.I.A. song for a while now.

M.I.A. finished around 12:30 am. Akeem and I waited around so that I could meet Maya and so that he could find out the name of the MC in Spank Rock. Maya was hanging out towards the back of the venue, talking to some people after the show. People were waiting for her to sign things so she started signing copies of Arular that people had with them. I brought my copy of her Pocko book to sign, figuring that it would be a more unique thing to get autographed. Maya was really surprised to see that I had it. She said, "Wow, you have my book! This is the first time I've seen it in the states." Akeem said that made me special. Haha. Then I waited for someone else to ask her for a picture first ('cause ya never know how people are about that) and then asked for one. I was pretty calm the whole time, but wish I had thought to ask her if she listens to soca at all. Although she probably does, especially since Cherry is from St. Vincent. I also wish I had mentioned that Akeem's and my parents are all West Indian. This was definitely one of the most culturally diverse shows I've been too. There were white kids, black kids, hispanic kids, east indian kids, just a little bit of everything. I think M.I.A. appeals to so many different kinds of people because her music is so diverse. She should be proud of the fact that no one else even comes close to doing what she's doing. After she took the picture with me, I said, "Thanks" in a kind of shy voice and Maya said, "Aww, it's ok." haha. She's super sweet. I love her more even now.

After getting the picture, Akeem and I left. We went to Walmart for snacks, and Quick Trip. I got home around 3, and had to get up 6:30. But it was all worth it. The show was amazing, and I'm so thrilled that I got to see Maya live.


Me and Maya


Pocko book

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