The comments and buzz Ke$ha’s Saturday appearance at Pier 7 created, has been somewhat amusing. Everything from criticism of its marketing, to allegations that the artist present wasn’t in fact Ke$ha. I will address these two points before talking about the event itself.
The reason that radios weren’t drilling your brains with Ke$ha songs and ads and no trucks which pollute Beirut even more were plastered with her glittery face, is because this wasn’t really an event or concert. It wasn’t some agency booking Pier 7 to sell tickets to people to come watch a full-length concert. It was Pier 7, getting Ke$ha to perform to its rapidly forming clientele. In other words, they did not need to advertise it because it was gonna be booked Saturday with or without Ke$ha. Also, this isn’t a 5000+ venue where people are stuffed like sardines in sections to smell armpits and get toes stepped on. This was more about exclusivity and pampering the guests, who paid as they would’ve paid on any other night at the venue.
As for Ke$ha being a fake one, come on! This isn’t 2003 when Monot clubs would get a fat look-alike of Massari and tell us that’s him… This is the Crystal group, who got Faithless, Paris Hilton, Timabaland among others. It’s an international brand and will not jeopardize its reputation, and of course legal troubles, by using Ke$ha’s name without permission.
To be honest, despite my love of purely electronic music, there are a few artists I have a weakness for. Lady Gaga is one of them, and Ke$ha is another. Unfortunately, the barrier of exclusivity and prestige discouraged me like many others. That’s until I learned several of my friends had tables there and that seeing Ke$ha live would in fact be pretty awesome.
The venue was fully-booked of course, and even Richard Quest’s CNN team had a lounge all to themselves! I met Richard Quest that night by the way, as he was preparing his Beirut version of “Future Cities”. Hisham, the host of OTV’s LOL was also there for those of you who have no idea who Richard Quest is =P.
Despite being full though, you could dance and jump and sing, with a mild breeze (odor-free) cooling everybody down. Which brings us to a point a lot of people have been talking about, the smell. It seems people mistakenly think that the awful stench of Karantina is close to the White and Pier 7 venues. They’re not, they’re a good 4 kilometers away from the Karantina tannery, slaughterhouse and “jabal el zbele” (garbage mountain). The smell in the area comes from the nearby river of Nahr el Mot, which industrial areas dump their contaminated water into. That was a concern, but for the past two weeks, I’ve smelled it during the opening only.
ANYWAY, now back to the Ke$ha. After being approximately an hour late, Ke$ha and two male dancers sprang up from beneath the club on the stage’s movable platform. She hit things off with We R Who We R, with many of her fans (myself included) singing along. Take it off, Blow, Blah Blah Blah were also played, with two other less-known songs also being performed. Ke$ha wrapped things off with her biggest hit, Tik Tok.
Ke$ha sang live, but as I’m sure you all know, several elements in her lyrics are electronically altered and enhanced, so these parts were of course played by her DJ, but her very real voice was there as she greeted Beirut, telling them she flew half-way across the world to party with all the party “animals” present!
I had been eying the glitter cannons all night, and as the finale manifested itself, the venue was engulfed with glittery confetti as Ke$ha disappeared into the bottom chambers of the stage.
All in all, it was a really fun performance by Ke$ha and proves Pier 7 does indeed have some stardom muscles to flex. After postponing Game’s appearance last week, the West Coast rapper is expected to show up this Wednesday!
Flip through the slideshow at the bottom, hope you “like” them =P
