It was billed to be the biggest concert of the year but even the most ardent music fan would not have been ready for what is undoubtedly the greatest night of a decade: the 2016 edition of Pepsi Rhythm Unplugged.
It ticked all right spots and delivered a night of extreme excitement that no heart can take in one fell swoop.
When have we ever experienced a lineup of over twenty acts – all plausibly in the best phase of their careers- and all able to make the night shorter than it actually is, with the crowd still jumping at 5 a.m in the morning? Almost never.
The 12th edition did just that. The stars came glittering and equally as eager as the fans.
From the minute Bovi, who directed the flow of the show, stepped on stage around 10 p.m to announce the commencement; every performer was amazing one after the other.
Each performance would need a review by itself. Except for Korede Bello, who required a slight push from Tiwa Savage. But then as soon as his ‘Godwin’ came on, he fed off the energy literally floating from the audience.
Waje was amazing. Seyi Shay was spectacular. Omawumi was breathtaking. Falz was captivating. Adekunle Gold was gold standard.
You could line the entire list of performers up and throw random adjectives at them to describe the superlative spectacle that they all provided.
Each time you felt the night had reached crescendo, the tempo went higher and higher and fucking higher.
As a matter of fact, it felt unfair to have all these superstars all at once: Olamide, Davido, Wizkid (who was performing for the first time since he cancelled his homecoming concerts), Runtown, Koker, Lola Rae, DJ Cuppy, Obi and XClusive, P-Square, Tekno, Reekado Banks… the list goes on and on.
The seamless music production, that saw majority of the artistes play with a live band, was anchored by the masterful Cohbams Asuquo and was perfectly rolled into one single night that truthfully may never be replicated.
Who knows which artiste would be hot next year and who wouldn’t? Would the stars so perfectly aligned that even though a Wizkid was in performance, it wouldn’t dim the shine of an Olamide or a Davido, or take away the established dazzle of an Omawumi or a Waje.
But then Rhythm Unplugged proved that it was possible to have this array of stars and fuse them in a way that it didn’t cloy the audience. Rather, they kept asking for more until the sun came up.
So it won’t be surprising if the organizers repeat this in the future. Until then, we have just one thing to ask of them: please don’t do this again. This was too beautiful, too incredible, too exciting to fit into one night.
If people could die from being too happy, the hall of the Eko Convention Centre would have been littered with bodies laying prostate simply from being amazed.
Please don’t do this again. It’s too good. Our hearts can’t take it.