Essence Music Festival comes to smooth end

Written on July 3, 2011 – 1:44 pm | by Jaxon Hallahan

NEW ORLEANS – The nation’s largest R&B festival wrapped up its three-night run Sunday with a stylish main-stage lineup that explored musical styles from adult-contemporary to hip-hop to old-school soul. Mary J. Blige held down the coveted closing slot of the 17th Essence Music Festival, leading a main-stage parade that included KEM, Trey Songz and a reunited New Edition. Funk pioneer George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, the local Hot 8 Brass Band and Doug E. Fresh were among 10 acts in the smaller super lounges in the Louisiana Super Dome. Among the closing highlights:

Love doctor: KEM’s hour-long opening set offered the complete adult-contemporary package: smooth, jazzy pop and R&B; cheeky flirtation with the women in the audience ; sage love advice for the men ; spiritual testimony; a surprise duet, and a tribute to one of his peers. The 41-year-old crooner with the sturdy voice and magnetic personality drew the bulk of his set from last year’s Intimacy: Album III, offering faithful versions of Golden Days, Why Would You Stay, Share My Life and, with guest Ledisi, recent single If It’s Love. He saved his most successful single, 2003′s I Can’t Stop Loving You, for next-to-last , then ended the show with Never Too Much, honoring Luther Vandross, who died six years ago this week.

All together now: Recently reunited New Edition took great pains to be historically accurate as the former boy-banders recreated their past with a sweetly nostalgic and well-received set. A five-member version of the group, with each singer clad in white dinner jackets, opened with mid-period hits If It Isn’t Love and You’re Not My Kind of Girl, allowing fans to sort out who was who. Then the crowd roared as Bobby Brown emerged from the wings and joined the quintet for Hit Me Off. The five members responsible for the group’s earliest hits in the early ’80s – Brown, Ronnie DeVoe, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins and Ralph Tresvant — and Johnny Gill introduced themselves and set out to remind fans of the shifts in the lineup. Gill left the stage and the original five cruised through early pop hits Jealous Girl, Is This the End, Popcorn Love, Candy Girl and Mr. Telephone Man as vintage photos flashed on the video screens surrounding them. Brown then stood apart from the group as the remaining four cruised through hits recorded following Brown’s 1985 departure, including Secret, Count Me Out and Cool it Now. Gill returned to the stage and the various members backed each other on solo hits such as Gill’s My, My My, Brown’s Tenderoni and Tresvant’s Sensitivity. Brown left the stage again as the Gill-led group led a sing-along on its beloved Can You Stand the Rain. To symbolize the current reunion tour, the group reprised Rain with each of the six taking a solo turn and everyone accenting the final words, “home again.”

Essence of Essence: Unlike the previous nights’ closers Usher and Kanye West, who had incorporated elaborate special effects and choreography into their shows, Mary J. Blige simply relied upon her powerful, pain-wracked voice, a steely repertoire and killer earrings to tell her story. The muscular yet polished 80-minute show was her first as a festival-closer at Essence and she more than met the challenge. Opening with up-tempo dance tunes It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over and The One, Blige stalked the stage wearing a black fringed top, black hot pants and black boots, all which contrasted with her deep blonde mane. Songs from all phases of her 20-year career flowed into one another, creating a collective tale of love gone wrong, sexual freedom and frustration, personal struggle and empowerment. She followed a sensuous I Am, from 2009′s Stronger With Each Tear album, with a shout-out to Saturday performer Chaka Khan, via Sweet Thing. A visceral and cathartic No More Drama seemed to connect with every woman in the Super Dome and left a wrung-out Blige on her knees and the crowd on its feet. Blige, whose energy and spirit never dipped, then sent everyone home in a party mood by closing with Just Fine, Dance for Me and Be Without You.

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