Leela James [Paradiso - Amsterdam]

With her own words: Tonight is the night, we’re gonna have a party…
Paradiso was sold out. Neo Soul Sensation Leela James had her first concert (extra concert planned for Oct. 10th) in The Netherlands in a packed Paradiso last night. The beautiful crowd was anticipating, the band good to go, her ‘fro way big and wavy, and oh my God… She was way different than what I had expected!

Where her album somehow gave me the impression of a laid-back artist with a tremendous voice, Leela turned out to be an entertainer first class, a tribal dancer extra-ordinaire and having more than average diva attitude. Ow!

IMHO she started a bit slumpy, maybe the normal situation for an artist’s first time in Amsterdam, [update: I watched the coverage of her performance at North Sea Jazz this year... and she started there a bit off-tone, -beat too, maybe she simply needs about 3 songs to get started...] but she soonly found the right voice, tone and attitude… and impressed!
Although only having sung about 8 songs in say 2 hours show, she proved to be able to entertain the crowd in voice, personality, charm (white roses), sensuality (LJ doing the innocent girlie look… Oy!), humour and surprises… It’s been a long time since I saw an artist crowdsurfing!
Her band was solid, strong and beautiful to look at, with the bass-player as my favourite (not just because he had a beltbuckle that flashed “We On Tour Now”).
Songs were all extended and accompanied by tribal-dance sequences by Miss James herself… which was swell and impressive to see, but somehow I expected a little more voice than visual entertainment.
On her album there’s just one song I hate just do not dig and sorry to hear that she had chosen that one - “Don’t Speak” - as final song. It’s nagging to me and all the people chanting along on top just gives me the jeeperscreepers.
Anyhow…

For the encore she came back with “Mistreating Me” and “A Change is Gonna Come”, which she did very sensitive and close with the crowd.

And just when you think it is over… Leela comes with an announcement: First that her bass-player needs to get his “happy birthday”-song, which was chanted exuberantly by Leela, Band and the whole crowd. When she asked for another “happy b’day” I thought “Mmmmm, this is starting to get lame…”, till I saw the celebrating friend she introduced on stage… no-one less than TALIB KWELI!!! As the band dropped a beat and the mic was passed over to Talib, he got the stage to spit his free-style. Surely that was not enough and shortly after he flowed This morning, I woke up | Feeling brand new and I jumped up | Feeling my highs, and my lows | In my soul, and my goals…, and the crowd and band went off the hizzle on the rest of “Get By”. Which ended in a walk-out of the singers and bandmembers one-by-one…

RESPECT for the whole night… performers and crowd!

After the show we went for some more “soulfood”, better said a quick bite… When walking back to the parkinglot afterwards I saw Talib Kweli on the sidewalk heading back to Paradiso. Did not think twice and ran after him for some smalltalk and 3 handshakes… Thanking for his awesome performance earlier that night - Why he dropped by? [Leela is a good friend, felt like sharing some time and joy] - More in Europe? [Yes, on tour and leaving next day for Norway] - Enjoying Amsterdam? [Definitely!] - Thanking again and paying respect… He obviously had a few beers and therefore but was very open and friendly (as far as I could make from this very short conversation…), and for me, it was a nice closure for this really good night out.

[Roy has a nice review of both concerts, together with some splendid pictures]
[Some nice pictures of the show in Belgium by Pietel]