"Ah Shakira, how much do we really really love thee?"![]()
[b]UK Album Launch party in de UK, 17 januari. Hoewel de CD hier al een tijdje uit is, wordt de CD daar pas op 27 februari uitgebracht. Tot nu toe was er daarom ook nauwelijks promotie in de UK. Gisteren was er een album presentatie in de Porchester Hall (bibliotheek) voor 400 pers-genodigden, en 15 winaars van een online wedstrijd. Ze zong 'costume makes the clown', 'La Tortura', 'Underneath Your Clothes', 'Don't Bother', 'Hey You' en 'Illegal'.
quote:
Let us count the ways...
1. Last night at your exclusive album launch party there were waiters and waitresses in the near-nude, like how you are on the cover of your new album 'Oral Fixation Vol 2'. They had fig leaves and apples and everything! Adam & Eve-tastic!
2. We loved the free drinks, especially the Caipirinhas (mmm, lemony). The mushroom pasta things - also good. Best were the chocolate shoes, although you couldn't eat a whole one. (Well, we couldn't. We just picked at the upper.)
3. We very much loved the poster of you with a bee on your lip that was stuck all over the walls of the very posh looking Porchester Hall. Hope you don't mind that we nicked one.
4. We loved how, after your first song 'Costume', you said thanks to important record label fella Rob Stringer. We thought it was especially lovable that you had a piece of paper taped next to your setlist with the words "Thanks to: Rob Stringer" typed on it!
5. We're still extremely keen on the way you're able to freely isolate and move parts of your body that would normally only be able to respond in such a way after a particularly nasty dislocation, say, after a horse riding accident.
6. It goes without saying that our heart swelled when you sang some of 'Hey You' straight at us then giggled when we got all embarrassed and shy.
7. Most of all we love you because you're a pop genius. And you don't get many of those to the centavos.
So that's seven ways in which we love Shakira. Quite a lot, really.
http://www.channel4.com/music/gossip/blog.html
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quote:
Shakira shows off body work
By Chris Elwell-Sutton, Evening Standard
18 January 2006
Shakira
Porchester Hall, W2
Bearing in mind that she has sold 25 million albums, last night's invitation-only showcase by Colombian Shakira was probably the smallest concert she has played for years. But if she thought playing to a mere 400 people was beneath her, it didn't show, as she pranced, wiggled and roared her way through a spirited set.
Looking and acting younger than her 28 years, she glowed with vitality and confidence as she opened with Costume, which set out an unashamedly Colombian stall. At times, during this track and also on the brilliant Underneath Your Clothes, there were points where her voice sounded rather strangulated on the high notes, and one suspects that a pre-recorded vocal track was backing her up during some of the more challenging phrases. Nonetheless, her overall showmanship was superb.
If wiggling one's body to music was a martial art, Shakira would have been awarded a black belt years ago, as her antics last night proved.
Having presumably moved on from the booty-shaking phase that first brought her international stardom with Whenever, Wherever, she performed extraordinary feats of rhythmic puppetry with her perfectly rounded stomach.
Her breasts, too, seemed to move independently, especially as she sang La Tortura (Torture), the most Latin track of the night, which embodied the frenzied, overtly sexual reggaeton sound that is sweeping South America.
But, as she closed with Don't Bother, a feisty slice of rocky pop, and Oral Fixation Pt 2, it occurred to me that every aspect of Shakira's performance - from baby-doll facial expressions to flicks of her huge mane of golden hair - was carefully stage-managed.
http://www.thisislondon.c(...)e=Evening%20Standard