A couple of weeks ago I was sitting at work when a friend dropped me an IM, something like "Ne-Yo is coming to Pok." (PoK is short for Poughkeepsie, NY.) My next question was why in the hell is Ne-Yo coming to PoK?? Does he not know about Pok? I'm all for an act I enjoy coming to a town I can access but PoK is a bit ridiculous. This man is a combined 5 times platinum with his first two albums. The other spots for this (short) tour (before he goes on a much larger tour with R. Kelly and Keyshia Coles) are places like LA, Orlando, and Chicago. PoK just looks really out of place on that list.
Anyway, even though I am questioning Ne-Yo's wisdom on this one, I sure as heck wasn't going to miss out. His song "Stay With Me" has been my ringtone for 2 years and I played his first album on repeat all the way through many times (and there aren't many albums I can say that abotu). His writing and album production ability is one of the best in R&B and I'm a fan. So I got a couple of tickets on Ticketmaster. I was excited to get row F seats but at the same time wondered how I could get row F tickets when the concert had been on sale for a good month. According to the venue map, the seating on the floor went as far back as ZZ, so getting F tickets 2 weeks before the concert was a bad sign. Then I started thinking, no way will Ne-Yo's people let him perform to an empty venue. But I get the tickets anyway and pray. I also checked ticketmaster everyday, noting that about 1/3 of the venue had been sold up to the day before.
So concert day comes, and I head out to Pok, with a quick stop in Monticello to meet up with my lil sis. On the way, we hear a couple of radio ads for the concert. My friend who told me about the concert mentioned a lack of radio ads (and the concert was sponsored by a radio station!) I started thinking maybe more people will buy tickets at the door now. I'm also hoping that we don't arrive to a cancelled concert. But we get there and people are being let in... slowly. There is a line up the block for people getting in: Not buying tickets and not because there were that many people, but because they had people being checked at one door. Of course when we get to the front, it's finally split off into more lines. We get in and this place is a glorified gymnasium. The seating isn't preset auditorium rows but plastic school chairs set in rows. And remember my row F? To apparently give the perception of more space being filled, they put a huge ass VIP section in front with tables. (That was totally not in the venue pic at ticketmaster.) Even with all that, the place was still half-empty and the vibe was quite "ghetto". This is also around when we find out it's Ne-Yo's birthday! He came to Pok on his BIRTHDAY. And again, we wondered, why the heck was Ne-Yo up in Pok?? And on his birthday of all days??
Since this is Pok, you know we can't have any good opening acts... oh no! It's got to be local cheesy showtime at the Apollo-like talent. The first opening act totally fit with the theme thus far. She was... how do I put this kindly... not the type I would view as a potentially successful artist... in every way possible. Her voice was lacking (to put it nicely), she couldn't dance, her outfit was 4 sizes too small, I could go on.... the only good thing about her performance was she kept it short and it was so bad it provided humor. People were literally bent over laughing at points. Highlights were the random throwing of sparkles in the air, for effect I guess, and when she acted like some big special guest artist was coming out to join her but it was just some random guy named Ziggy. The poor woman got a deafening silence when she asked if we were enjoying the show, then loud applause when she said she was done! My sister's friend Je asked if we thought her performance was a joke someone was playing. It was that horrible. The next act wasn't great either, but at least she could really sing. At this point, we were ready for Ne-Yo.
The showtime was 8pm and after some sad opening acts, Ne-Yo made his way out after 9:30pm. It was an awesome show. He did all his popular songs, a few new songs, and sounded great. He spoke in between songs, providing history on why he wrote certain songs, making jokes, or just having fun interacting with the audience. He's very charismatic, which kept things fun and made it seem like the show flew by. He had a great DJ too that kept the crowd pumped with recent hits before and during a break in the show (and I would have prefered the DJ over the "opening acts".) Ne-Yo also had him play some songs he wrote for other artist like Beyonce's Irreplaceable (aka "to the left") and Rihanna's song about not wanting to be a murderer. The man is just overall talented. And at no point did he dwell on or even point out the turnout. He was nothing but professional and appreciative of the crowd that was there. I'd definitely like to check him out at a better venue but was glad he showed up and we were able to get better seats than we would at a more popular spot.
I don't know who lied to you about Pok, Ne-Yo, but thanks for showing up!
Anyway, even though I am questioning Ne-Yo's wisdom on this one, I sure as heck wasn't going to miss out. His song "Stay With Me" has been my ringtone for 2 years and I played his first album on repeat all the way through many times (and there aren't many albums I can say that abotu). His writing and album production ability is one of the best in R&B and I'm a fan. So I got a couple of tickets on Ticketmaster. I was excited to get row F seats but at the same time wondered how I could get row F tickets when the concert had been on sale for a good month. According to the venue map, the seating on the floor went as far back as ZZ, so getting F tickets 2 weeks before the concert was a bad sign. Then I started thinking, no way will Ne-Yo's people let him perform to an empty venue. But I get the tickets anyway and pray. I also checked ticketmaster everyday, noting that about 1/3 of the venue had been sold up to the day before.
So concert day comes, and I head out to Pok, with a quick stop in Monticello to meet up with my lil sis. On the way, we hear a couple of radio ads for the concert. My friend who told me about the concert mentioned a lack of radio ads (and the concert was sponsored by a radio station!) I started thinking maybe more people will buy tickets at the door now. I'm also hoping that we don't arrive to a cancelled concert. But we get there and people are being let in... slowly. There is a line up the block for people getting in: Not buying tickets and not because there were that many people, but because they had people being checked at one door. Of course when we get to the front, it's finally split off into more lines. We get in and this place is a glorified gymnasium. The seating isn't preset auditorium rows but plastic school chairs set in rows. And remember my row F? To apparently give the perception of more space being filled, they put a huge ass VIP section in front with tables. (That was totally not in the venue pic at ticketmaster.) Even with all that, the place was still half-empty and the vibe was quite "ghetto". This is also around when we find out it's Ne-Yo's birthday! He came to Pok on his BIRTHDAY. And again, we wondered, why the heck was Ne-Yo up in Pok?? And on his birthday of all days??
Since this is Pok, you know we can't have any good opening acts... oh no! It's got to be local cheesy showtime at the Apollo-like talent. The first opening act totally fit with the theme thus far. She was... how do I put this kindly... not the type I would view as a potentially successful artist... in every way possible. Her voice was lacking (to put it nicely), she couldn't dance, her outfit was 4 sizes too small, I could go on.... the only good thing about her performance was she kept it short and it was so bad it provided humor. People were literally bent over laughing at points. Highlights were the random throwing of sparkles in the air, for effect I guess, and when she acted like some big special guest artist was coming out to join her but it was just some random guy named Ziggy. The poor woman got a deafening silence when she asked if we were enjoying the show, then loud applause when she said she was done! My sister's friend Je asked if we thought her performance was a joke someone was playing. It was that horrible. The next act wasn't great either, but at least she could really sing. At this point, we were ready for Ne-Yo.
The showtime was 8pm and after some sad opening acts, Ne-Yo made his way out after 9:30pm. It was an awesome show. He did all his popular songs, a few new songs, and sounded great. He spoke in between songs, providing history on why he wrote certain songs, making jokes, or just having fun interacting with the audience. He's very charismatic, which kept things fun and made it seem like the show flew by. He had a great DJ too that kept the crowd pumped with recent hits before and during a break in the show (and I would have prefered the DJ over the "opening acts".) Ne-Yo also had him play some songs he wrote for other artist like Beyonce's Irreplaceable (aka "to the left") and Rihanna's song about not wanting to be a murderer. The man is just overall talented. And at no point did he dwell on or even point out the turnout. He was nothing but professional and appreciative of the crowd that was there. I'd definitely like to check him out at a better venue but was glad he showed up and we were able to get better seats than we would at a more popular spot.
I don't know who lied to you about Pok, Ne-Yo, but thanks for showing up!
Me and my sis right before Ne-Yo came on
Ne-yo performing a fave of mine (and my ringtone) "Stay with Me"
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