L.A. Pride Parade | L.A. PrideFestival | Festival 6/9/18 | Festival 6/10/18
LOS ANGELES, CA-
“… Having spent the entire first day of LA! Pride at the main stage, I took note of, and chatted with, a lot of the concert goers who spent their day at the main stage with me at the rail. after about 7 hours had passed, I notice a great many of the same faces still being there since the very start. When I asked them who they were all patiently waiting for, they all said the same thing: “Kehlani.”
They were lucky ones, as there were plenty of ticket holders who couldn’t enter the festival grounds later in the evening as the venue had reached its capacity. And those lucky one were treated to a stellar exhibition of showmanship and undeniable charisma.
With her pop-leaning R&B, Kehlani performed an 18 song set that had fans screaming her name throughout. I thought it was particularly impressive how polished performance her performance was. With a cadre of dancers swirling about her, the energy on stage was lively and joyful. Kehlani’s voice was on point too, and that fact was equally impressive, if not surprising, considering that there were sound issues that prevented her from hearing herself in her monitors or earpiece, and trust me … if you think its easy to stay in tune with the band on a large stage without hearing yourself sing, you’ve never tried it yourself.
But after pulling her earpiece out of her ear, and chastising the the sound techs for doing “unacceptable” work, she continued to slay her performance.
From “Keep On” to “Gangsta” to “CRZY”, she performed all of her hits. She pulled out a cover of Tamia’s “So Into You” and also performed her Calvin Harris collab “Faking It”. Towards the end of her set, she also performed her most recent collab, the Saweetie remix of “ICY GRL”. I thought that this would have been a fantastic chance for her to bring the up and coming talent Saweetie to the stage since Saweetie is an L.A. native. That didn’t happen, and I thought that that was an opportunity missed, especially since it was a headline performance.
There was a mother and daughter pair who had waited all day to see Kehlani perform. I didn’t have to ask them whether or not it had been worth it to wait all day at the front of the pack to see their queen perform. I could see it in the looks in their eyes and the way that they were singing along to every lyric. The mother’s arms was spent resting over her daughter’s shoulder, occasionally pulling the daughter in closer during the more emotional and loving moments in Kehlani’s lyrics. No, I didn’t have to ask. It was there in plain sight …”
Follow Kehlani on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
L.A. Pride Parade | L.A. PrideFestival | Festival 6/9/18 | Festival 6/10/18
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