Hateration and Holleration are Off the Damn Table

This is Mary J.'s dancery, so you better listen.

I don’t think I’ve written a concert review in years. This is an exercise in “keeping my chops up”, so please read with that in mind.

I’ve known my friend (and mentor, and former boss) Craig for almost three decades. I reached out to him around the time of a milestone birthday (shhh, it was his 70th) to get together, and he mentioned that he’d won tickets to see Mary J. Blige at Madison Square Garden through a contest on Sirius XM. MJB has been on my bucket list for a minute, so when the opportunity came up to accompany him to the show, I jumped. I love Mary (and Craig) enough that I was game to fight through two major aversions (crowds and being out late on a weeknight) to attend. Here are a few thoughts now that I’ve had a week and a half to digest.

The Venue: I’ve seen quite a few shows at Madison Square Garden over the years, dating back to 1995 (my first arena show; R.E.M. during the “Monster” tour). I’ve experienced everyone from Janet to the Beastie Boys to Dave Matthews to Christina Aguilera there. It’s a great place to see a show, and thanks to the good people at Sirius XM, our seats were excellent (on the floor, facing the stage head on). Entry and egress were much easier than I remember experiencing during previous MSG experiences, and I also realized that this was my first time seeing anything at the Garden in over five years (Knicks game) and my first time seeing music at the Garden since I returned to NYC in 2015. It was also—improbably—Mary J’s first ever headlining show there. More on that in a minute.

The Crowd: Mary J. is the patron saint of late Gen X/early millennial Black and Brown women, and the middle-aged sistas were definitely out in full force. However, I was a bit surprised at the diversity of the audience. I don’t think much of Mary as a crossover phenomenon, but there was a solid sampling of White folks in attendance and they were jamming and singing along too (and not just to the hits!) I’ll chalk that up to the average age of the crowd (which I’d estimate between 35 and 55 with very little variance) and the fact that White folks who live in New York City are built real different from White folks who live in, like, Ohio.

The Openers: If you were a contemporary R&B fan in 2010, this was your show. Baltimore’s Mario came out first, and in case you forgot (I did), dude has a surprisingly lengthy catalog of bops. “Just a Friend”, “Braid My Hair”, “Crying Out for Me”, “Break Up” and “How Do I Breathe” all made appearances during his half hour set. Mario appeared to be singing live throughout (not a given at shows nowadays) and was in fine voice. Scantily clad female dancers were a recurring theme through the support acts, and maybe this is a sign of me getting old; but seeing half-naked girls simulating sex on stage these days gives me less a feeling of titillation and more a feeling of “I feel like these ladies are being exploited somehow.” Regardless, Mario’s short set was entertaining, and of course he closed it with “Let Me Love You”, which was a massive Number One pop hit written by…

…the second support act, Ne-Yo. It’s a little sad that pop culture left Ne-Yo on the side of the road half a decade (if not more) ago, because he’s a singular talent. He’s not incredibly removed from an Album of the Year Grammy nomination and chart-topping singles, but he’s been surpassed in popularity by artists he inspired (there’s no Bruno Mars without Ne-Yo) and artists he wrote hits for (Rihanna and Beyoncé chief among them). He opened his set with “Stay” (the lead track on his very first album, 2006’s In My Own Words) and literally glided through a set that included hits like “Miss Independent” (and its remix, “She Got Her Own”), “Champagne Life”, “Because of You” and “So Sick”. Ne-Yo personifies slickness, with a stage manner heavily influenced by Sammy Davis Jr. and extremely heavily influenced by Michael Jackson, to the point that his sparkly jacket seemed like it was stolen from MJ’s Triumph tour wardrobe case (and he paid the debt by interpolating a bit of “Off the Wall” into one of his songs). There was more simulated sex with scantily clad female dancers, which in conjunction with Ne-Yo’s recent turn in the celebrity news cycle for being in a “polyamorous” relationship with four women (which sounds less like what I know polyamory to be and more like a midlife crisis fueled by desperation, cult of personality and illicit substances) led to a bit of the “ick”. Thankfully, Ne-Yo’s talent outweighed my side-eye, and I was truly surprised by the heft and grit of his singing voice, which occasionally boasted a rougher edge that his records barely hint at.

The entertainment between sets was provided by Funkmaster Flex, who was the weak link of the show. His DJ set essentially consisted of 45-60 seconds of hugely popular songs, punctuated by Flex’s high-pitched whine. The songs he played contained a mixture of pre-streaming hip-hop and R&B, ranging from gimmes like Frankie Beverly’s “Before I Let Go” to a handful of soca selections (Flex wisely played to the diversity of the average NYC crowd, which contained more than a few Caribbean-Americans). His set also included “It’s All About the Benjamins” (which Flex prefaced with “I know Diddy fucked up, but he’s still my man.” The crowd (at least the crowd around me) didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered. I’m…to put it mildly, conflicted. Truthfully, we could’ve done without Flex. I’ve heard better selections of music between sets piped in from someone’s iPod or phone.

The Headliner: Mario and Ne-Yo were well-received, but if there was any doubt at who the crowd really came to see, it was erased the second Mary emerged, resplendent in a pink fur, to the strains of her version of the DeBarge classic “A Dream”. Making her way to the stage via a catwalk, the Queen of Hip Hop Soul proceeded to deliver banger after banger, going deep into her catalog for a selection of hits (“Be Happy”, “Love is All We Need”, “Reminisce”), key album tracks/fan favorites (“I’m the Only Woman”, the “Love No Limit” remix) and a handful of tracks from her latest album, Gratitude. The songs were interspersed with pre-recorded video vignettes that leaned heavily into Mary’s “survivor” aesthetic. The audience (myself included) ate that shit up. Given the times we’re living in, MJB’s words of positivity, faith and empowerment rang extra hard.

Although there were plenty of moments of “you sing along”, it was clear that Mary has come a long way since those early days of botched notes. Her singing wasn’t studio perfect (and it didn’t need to be), but she made up for the occasional off-key moment with pure soul. An acapella version of “Your Child” was particularly notable, and she brought the same fire and brimstone to “No More Drama” that caused Celine Dion to make the “did I just see a ghost?” face when Mary performed it at the Grammy Awards nearly a quarter-century ago.

The whole “doing work on myself”/”self empowerment” schtick can run thin depending on who is delivering the schtick. As much as I love Mary, I’m also a natural cynic, and there was a little tiny man on my shoulder who was looking for cracks in MJB’s presentation. But never once did I get the impression that Mary was being anything other than sincere in her presentation. The main reason that fans have stuck by her side for three and a half decades is because (almost) everything she does, says and sings rings true. It’s a testament to her particular kind of genius that so many of her fans came to the world’s most famous arena, some dressed for a party, some dressed for church, and we all got a full serving of both.