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For pop-R&B leaning millennials, the pairing of Ne-Yo and Akon on this co-headlining tour certainly has a heavy dose of nostalgia, which kicks in almost immediately with the smoke that billows around Ne-Yo’s black fedora and Michael Jackson-inspired moves. But there’s an undeniable magic beyond that, as the two artists pull from careers that produced eight UK No 1 singles and 410 weeks in the Top 40 between them in the mid-00s to early 10s.
Over the course of just under three hours, the duo take turns in the spotlight, the mood seesawing in line with each of them. Beginning with a snippet of Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel before segueing into his 2008 hit Miss Independent, Ne-Yo is smooth and suave in his vocals and dextrous choreography, an effective contrast to Akon’s all-out charisma and party-starter energy which arrives with classics like Smack That – the first time, of many, that the crowd fully loses it.
The sultry atmosphere of Ne-Yo’s She Knows and Sexy Love is amped up by dancers dressed in leather and the addition of some majestic aerial rope skills. Meanwhile, Akon brings colourful carnival vibes, gleefully tapping away on a set of conga drums before the sweet and sunny Don’t Matter and the more emotionally heavy Lonely.
“We got a lot of damn hits,” Akon proclaims as they engage in a kind of tete-a-tete battle of songs they’ve played an oft-forgotten role in. Ne-Yo gives us Mario’s Let Me Love You, Rihanna’s Take a Bow and Beyoncé’s Irreplaceable, all of which he co-wrote in tandem with his solo career, while Akon blasts through a crowd-pleasing cover of Lady Gaga’s Just Dance, which – a good bit of trivia for pop pub quizzes, this – he wrote with her back in 2008.
As they continue through Ne-Yo’s So Sick and his Pitbull collaboration Give Me Everything, to David Guetta’s Akon-featuring Sexy Bitch, spanning earnest R&B to sambuca-friendly EDM, the show doesn’t come across as a bland feelgood throwback or cynical cash-in. Instead, it’s a joyous, varied spectacle that shows how deep an impact these two made on pop culture for a time.
English (US)