Event organisers can pick a lesson or two from Darey’s Love Like A Movie Editor

By James Silas

Love Like A Movie… I suppose we all know that Darey is one heck of a talented artiste – one of the best from and in Africa. However, the present craze for Pop/Party music would probably not motivate a lot of people to attend a ‘Darey’s Show’ but guess what? He knows.

The hype flow for this event was gradual and consistent but the confirmation that American reality TV star, Kim Kardashian would not only attend, but host the red carpet took the hype to another level.

Now, Let’s go straight to the point.

My expectation for the Red Carpet event was quite high… I actually thought Kim K was going to handle the mic and face the camera for a bit, but she only walked the carpet, answered a few questions from the press and walked straight off to the private green room where she mingled with platinum guests before having dinner with some of Nigeria’s who’s who.

We all agree that most music events in Nigeria start several hours behind schedule but this concert was somewhat different. I can imagine that the organizers were initially trying to save time for the VVIP seats to fill up before kicking off but Darey probably insisted otherwise because Ms. Kardashian, apparently, had a waiting flight to catch the same night.

The ‘Movie’ started at 8:30pm… the crowd cheered and clapped as Kim K stepped out with a radiant smile to officially declare the show open and introduce Darey to the stage. It was a very brief moment… it was like watching a movie at the cinema; one slight distraction would make you miss the scene and until you own a copy of the movie, you might never see that scene again.

Unlike a lot of concerts I have attended in the past, featured artistes share or steal the moment from the main act but ‘Love Like A Movie‘ was Darey’s show and he solely directed the pace to the best of his ability. It was his set… every activity on that stage revolved around him from his first performance ‘Sisi Eko‘ to the last ‘Asiko‘ featuring Ice Prince Zamani and Mo’eazy.

Watching the event from start to finish revealed that the artistes on the bill were not there for solo performances. I mean, apart from Soul Muzik artistes, Mo’Eazy and Zaina, no artiste got a moment alone on stage. However, singers Waje, Praiz, Banky W, Tolu and Timi Dakolo helped out at intervals as Darey also performed some love classics like ‘Endless Love‘ (Diana Ross and Lionel Richie), ‘End Of The Road‘ (BoysIIMen), ‘I Wanna Know‘ (Joe), ‘What A Wonderful World‘ (Louis Armstrong) and so on.

Apart from the excellent performances, the amazing stage craft, apt lighting, good sound and breathtaking multimedia effects, guests were awestruck as a sand artiste created visual interpretation when Darey was performing ‘Not The Girl’ and ‘Endless Love’ with Waje.

The concert came to an end at about 10:15pm… if anything was skipped in the course of the event, nobody could tell because like I said, Darey directed the show and ended it at the peak.

And everyone wanted the show to go on.

I expect other music event organizers to pick a lesson or two from this concert, as it has just raised the bar of event organization in Nigeria.

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