Despite the fact that ASCMC lost $25,000, the fireworks from LMFAO’s performance last Saturday put Katy Perry to shame.
The hip-hop duo, party-music favorites of “Shots” and “Yes” fame, gave a phenomenal concert last Saturday night at Pomona's Big Bridges Auditorium. Although the concert's turnout was less impressive than its sponsors may have hoped due to a high ticket price (hey, college students are cheap!), those 5C students who did shell out their $30 were not disappointed. The beats were loud, the lights were bright, and any doubt in the audience's mind was quickly forgotten once the music started playing.
The show began with an anonymous opener, who seemed fine for the first twenty minutes. He was a decent rapper and avoided the fact that nobody knew his music by rapping to famous songs by Nicki Minaj and other renowned artists. All was well until he started to mess up on his lip-syncing. He tried to recover from his Ashlee Simpson-type fail by awkwardly blaming his blunder on the DJ and the quietness of the music. He then shuffled his feet and said, “Sorry about this guys… HEY WHO PREGAMED TONIGHT?!” Most of the crowd was so “pregamed” at this point that they forgave—or didn’t even notice—his mistake and happily raised their hands in response. But the performer was visibly uncomfortable. Minutes later, he just walked off in the middle of a song and never returned. At least he didn’t do a hoedown.
A 20-minute lag followed as we all sat in the brightly-lit auditorium before the DJ came out and played non-LMFAO songs for another 20 minutes while the double screens flashed LMFAO signs, ironic considering the actual LMFAO rappers were nowhere to be seen.
While the duo certainly wasn't punctual, they were undeniably great performers. From the time Redfoo and SkyBlu came onstage, they knew how to keep the audience entertained. The two were constantly dancing and interacting with the audience, and band members often joined in with their quirky dance moves. Unfortunately, the flurry of random people onstage got to be a confusing after a while; at one point, an unknown girl in bright yellow booty-shorts was dancing in the middle of the stage, and it was unclear whether she was actually with the LMFAO tour or not.
The group constantly referred to us as “party people.” I’m convinced this was partially because they were bent on maintaining their “party” image, but probably was more because they were smashed and wanted to avoid yelling “WHAT’S UP (insert name of a city other than Claremont here)” on accident. The latter explanation would’ve been understandable, seeing as they were shamelessly drinking champagne onstage.
And yet the two didn’t fail to live up to their party-hard reputation. Hit songs were accompanied by explosions of confetti guns, and clips of Jersey Shore played along to “Get Crazy.” During “Shots,” they pulled 15 scantily-clad girls onstage to perform a drunken version of the can-can. LMFAO encouraged everyone to hold up their shot glasses (or, more accurately, our middle fingers, since no gum, much less shot glasses, was allowed inside). Glow sticks and other items were thrown out into the audience throughout the performance to the delight of the crowd. And the crowd partied back. One extremely awkward couple tried to freak dance in between the seats of the auditorium (this isn’t a dance, girl in a tie-dye-shirt and boy-in-yellow-long-tee. Couldn’t you have done that in the privacy of your own room without paying $25?). One girl in a pink shirt jumped onstage and danced for a good ten seconds before a bodyguard escorted her out of the auditorium.
Although LMFAO is great at producing catchy electro-rap beats, they’re definitely not known for their singing skills. In every song that included auto-tuned vocals, Redfoo and SkyBlu didn’t even attempt to sing. During Fergie’s parts in “Getting Over You,” the two rappers would just dance around until their “party and party and party” bit came on. This would be fine if Fergie didn’t dominate a large majority of the song… but she does.
The night took a turn for the worse when the two rappers disappeared after “Shots” and never returned. The DJ tried to distract us from the fact that the people we had come to see had left by playing Top 40 songs; I’ll admit that I fist-pumped to “Papa Americano” and had a good time to “Stereo Love” and “Living on a Prayer,” but then we all quickly got annoyed once we realized they were just stalling for time. This second half of the show consisted of filler, five minutes of which were a horribly monotonous song with lyrics that repeated, “I like Justin Bieber” and “Barbra Streisand!” People behind me were muttering, “Even I’m not drunk enough for this.”
At the end of the night, the audience tried to bring the disappearing duo back by giving a standing ovation. Unfortunately, the audience was unaware that a standing ovation required that you clap, so they just stood and chanted for LMFAO to come onstage. They didn’t.
Ultimately, while the duo may be flawed, only LMFAO could pull off saying “la la la” to a screen of Spongebob Squarepants scenes while still pleasing the audience. They may not be the most talented, the most professional, or the most original. But after Saturday's concert, one thing is obvious: these two are definitely fun.