If like me, you thought the messiah had been and gone in the form of Queen Bey last year, boy did we get it wrong. The heavens parted at Riverstage tonight and delivered a humble bundle of dirty-disco groove and plain ol’, kick ass swagger in the form of God’s greatest gift to womankind aka Pharrell Williams (and yes he was wearing ‘the hat’)
If 2013 was the year PW made his long awaited jump to centre stage, then 2014 will be the year he declares world domination whether you are into him or not. Not only has Williams recently dominated the charts with his string of hit collaborations (FYI I’m talking about Daft Punk and Robin Thicke amongst many others in case you have been hibernating for a year) but he has just dropped his second solo record, aptly tilted G I R L, considering Williams optimistic take on modern day feminism.
An opinion that is well and truly touched upon during his short and sweet 50 minute set in which I found my self uncharacteristically grinding on my gal pal, pretending to know all the lyrics to familiar yet unexpected songs (safe to say he has produced or featured on at least 20% of all decent hits in the past decade) and cracking too many unnecessary jokes to an uncomfortable friend next to me (I blame Williams for instilling a certain confidence in me that should definitely not extend to my humour)
The current king of pop kicked off with a nostalgic collection of tunes that were certainly on high rotation back in my heyday, burning a hole through my trusty first generation iPod (feat man repelling velcro belt case) We got hot with Nelly, dropped it with Snoop and holla’d with Gwen then I bom bom’ed my booty to the moon with Major Lazer, tunes on which Pharrell either led vocals too or penned. Then came ‘Hunter’, my hot pick from his new record, followed by a few N.E.R.D throwbacks and a performance of Get Lucky that even Robocop would have stiffly tapped his toes too.
A heart warming preach on ‘love, but above all happiness’ would have been well received had I not been embarrassedly ‘getting’ dirty girl’ and twerking my little heart out a minute earlier, but nonetheless it sunk in and I found most of the crowd beaming brightly when he launched into the sparkling finale that was ‘Happy’. The tune finished, but somehow Mr Williams was not satisfied as he instructed the crowd to part the seas like Moses and jumped into the depths of the mosh to once again, deliver an even more jovial rendition of the chart topper before he and his abs exited in a cloud of feel good-dream worthy vibes.
It may not have been the most technical set Skateboard P has delivered, (a lot of the tracks had vocals dubbed) but boy does this man know how to romance a lady without ever knowing her name. Now if you’ll excuse, I’ll be heading to the nearest parlour to get ‘Pharrell 4 eva’ inked on my booty.
Words: Leila Amirpariz
