The reviews are in, and my live tweeting of last night’s John Legend Shanghai concert was, as the venerable Dan Washburn put it, “historic.” The concert itself was not too shabby; that dude is pretty fucking talented, although it was unfortunate he didn’t feel the need to sing that Nutmeg song from Stephen Colbert’s Christmas special. Feel free to read my review on Shanghaiist, but for true brilliance check out the Twitter stream from last night’s epic performance. Start from the bottom and read up.
# Ok concert done, in safe confines of Kuluska and 15 RMB wines now. Was an honor to live-tweet Legend for you peoples, signing off now – EH
# Ok now they’re dueting. To everyone’s surprise at Yunfeng, the song is not in Mandarin Chinese.
# Karen Mok playing the part of blurry white smudge: http://twitpic.com/301ba
# Karen Mok is talented, but her voice can’t overcome Yunfeng’s crap sound system. Can hardly hear her.
# Ok Karen Mok out now, Legend playing piano for her. She’s singing 阴天, wonder if he’ll join her.
# Grainy iPhone photo of Legend doing piano solo of “Ordinary People.” http://twitpic.com/300xr
# Ok encore time, still no Karen Mok.
# Funny, when we put on wife-beaters and stand on top of pianos, the ladies don’t go quite as wild.about
# At least Legend easier to understand than Black Thought (see: Roots concert). Like, it’s totally obvious that be wants to make love.
# Yunfeng nice venue choice cuz it’s more intimate: bad choice cuz sound system still totally bites.
# Legend singing his hit “Everybody Knows.” Some people still pumped up but most are just chilling in their seats.
# Ok so this guy is pretty talented. He just made all his bandmates leap up in the air all at the same time.
# Time for our favorite Legend song: “Stay with You.” Yes, we are the soft tender types, you wanna fight about it?
# Legend just invited a young lady to join him onstage and the two girls in front of us fell over each other.
# Now here’s a pleasant surprise: John Legend doing Bob Marley’s “Turn Your Lights Down Low.” Peace sign, John, peace sign.
# The way we were: Zhang Ziyi in youth: Awwww… before Zhang Yimou, .. http://tinyurl.com/dk6jey
# Ok the place is packed now and people really getting into it. http://twitpic.com/2zytn
# Ok so John Legend asked and now everyone is on their feet.
# The green clad CCP comrades sitting two rows in front of us don’t seem to know what all the hullabaloo is about.
# Only about 3% of the audience is out of their seat, which leaves another 3% frustrated that they can’t see the stage.
# We weren’t kidding about that banner, by the way. http://twitpic.com/2zya8
# And the Legend takes the stage! We’re gonna bust a nutmeg.
# Banner above stage: “Welcome the friends from all over the world.” Thanks, Yunfeng Theater! http://twitpic.com/2zxtrabout
# Either Karen Mok turned into a super ripped African-American R&B singer or we were slightly wrong about her being the opening act
# Tickets at the door are going for 800-1000 RMB. And honest people are actually buying them. Take that, scalp-nation.
# Super mixed crowd outside of Yunfeng theater for John Legend show. Scalpers seem the most energetic, though.
