Great Concert
by Esfromdownsouth on 7/7/09Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre - OrlandoThe India.Arie and Tamia show was fabulous. These ladies really put on a brilliant show. I was surprised by how long Tamia's part of the show was. Tamia performed for about an hour, including singing and dancing in front of a full band. She covered all of her hits. There was a very touching part of the show when Tamia's husband, Grant Hill, and their two children came out during her show. It was very well done. Grant even got in on the action by playing piano during one the intros to one of Tamia's songs. Tamia's band was spectacular, including her Music Director Shep Crawford who wrote or cowrote quite a few of her hits. He's a beast on keyboards. Whoever ran sound for Tamia also needed some credit. She sounded like her records, spectacular. I would be remiss if I didn't mention Tamia's superfine dancers/background singers. These girls were hott hott hott, form fitting white pants included. A very nice visual if you know what I mean. Just when you thought the show had reached a high, India.Arie came out and man oh man was it "on." India.Arie performed for another hour to hour and a half. She sang quite a few songs from her new record, but covered all of the bases with her hits from her four albums. There were a few songs that I would have liked to hear, "Long Goodbye" from the new album and "India's Song" from her previous release. But I suppose everyone has their favorites and artists only have so much time. India gave it her all. She stated that she'd just recovered from some sort of ear, nose, and throat ailment, but you'd never know it from her performance. She showed herself to be quite the multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, piano and who would have thunk it, flute. All done very admirably. India's band and background singers were also very tight. Not including India, her band comprised of keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums. Two background singers filled out the ensemble with India freelancing on acoustic and electric guitar, keyboards, flute or just vocals. As an artist India is so inspirational because you can tell that she has really come into her own as an artist by her adoption of her mission to bring peace through music and words. Great show. If she comes this way again, I'm so there. This show was definitely the way to celebrate July 4th. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.