Rihanna: A catalyst of sorts

Branded by her critics as icy, indifferent and nonchalant on stage, pop superstar Rihanna was a little bit different to the Manila crowd at her Diamonds concert at the Mall of Asia Arena last Thursday night.

Although she made her Filipino fans wait for two hours, Rihanna tried to make up for it with her warmth and personal connection to the fans. At one point in her concert, Rihanna came down the stage and shook the hands of people at the front. She blew kisses to the crowd and mouthed “I love you, too!” to an overzealous fan.

She also became nostalgic at the start of the concert when she told the crowd she has been to Manila five years ago during her Good Girl Gone Bad Tour, with ex-flame Chris Brown.

“Manila, how are you all feeling tonight? It’s my second time here. The first time was really a long time ago but see, I did not forget,” the singer said before launching into her next song Pour it Up, one of her songs from her latest album Unapologetic, touted by critics as her darkest yet one of her best records.

Clad in an all-white ensemble (shirt, shorts and jacket which she shed one by one after every segment in the concert), Rihanna performed before a jampacked crowd to a live band and group of back-up dancers.

The stage had a big rotating circle at the center and large screens that flashed images at every song. There were also blinding strobe lights and special effects all to enhance Rihanna’s performance.

Rihanna punctuated her every hit song with her signature dance moves — casual and easy not powerful like those of Beyoncé or Britney Spears. There were times her voice was raspy but she sang well in most of her songs. Rihanna is not known as a belter anyway.

But she was most energetic with her raunchy dance moves. For instance in the naughty number Birthday Cake, Rihanna tapped and grabbed her crotch. She also rapped the lines from the song. In many of her dance songs, she did twerking, ala Miley Cyrus. In Jump, the audience had some visual treat when Rihanna’s performance was accompanied by flame bursts and heavy guitar synths.

Before singing What Now, she had a bit of a dialogue with the fans. “Who of you here have been in love? You know that complicated shit called love, here are two words, What Now,” Rihanna said to thunderous cheer.

The fun part of the show where the audience seemed to really enjoy was Rihanna’s sing-along sessions with them. The crowd danced and sang along to her greatest hits such as Take A Bow, Only Girl, Hate That I Love You So, All of  the Lights, Where Have you Been, We Found Love and her very first hit Umbrella.

One of the highlights of the show was her rendition of the piano-driven Stay, where the diva stood at the middle of the stage and sang in her revealing one-piece suit. While her back-up dancers changed costumes, Rihanna did not. This was a deviation from her other concerts where she changed costumes at every segment.

For her encore, she sang Diamonds, again with the crowd joining in the singing.

“I love you Manila, thank you so much. You made this possible because you bought the tickets, I can’t wait to come back here,” Rihanna told the crowd.

She sang a total of 26 songs during the 90-minute concert.

Manila, along with Macau and Singapore, are the only three Asian cities that Rihanna visited for her Diamonds World Tour. She has so far visited 60 countries across the globe.

One of the most successful women in the  music industry today, Rihanna has sold 63 million tracks in the US and is the first artist in the 20-year history of Billboard’s pop songs radio airplay chart to have 10 No.1 hits. A pop icon, she has 29 million followers on her Twitter and three million on her Instagram.

Meanwhile, some of the celebrities who watched the event were Vice Ganda, Lucy Torres-Gomez with her daughter Julianna and her friends Claudia Barretto and Dominique Cojuangco. Also spotted were lovebirds Sam Concepcion and Jasmine Curtis-Smith, a dateless Kim Chiu, Bianca Gonzalez and boyfriend, Phoemela Baranda, Raymond Gutierrez and Karla Estrada.

Rihanna’s concert became a catalyst of sorts — she made the people from the super VIP section who paid not less than P25,000 to those in the general admission wait for two hours.

If in Europe, Rihanna was pelted with chips for being late for an hour to her concert, here the audience waited patiently for her. Talk about devotion. The concert was presented by Smart and Fibr.