Review: Amazing ’90s hitmakers deliver incredibly moving night of music
You just can’t replace Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes.
Nobody knows that better than TLC, the ’90s R&B-pop hitmakers who have been without the amazing rapper — who provided the “L” in the band’s name — since her death at the age of 30 in 2002.
So, TLC didn’t even try during Sunday night’s well-attended concert at Concord Pavilion, making the wise decision to incorporate recordings of Lopes’ vocals into their performance rather than to try and have someone else handle the verses onstage.
The result was a moving one-hour-plus set of music that not only championed the group’s current duo incarnation — with Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, the “T” and “C” in TLC, respectively — but also underscored the mighty legacy of Left Eye.
TLC’s performance was, by far, the highlight of the last stop on the successful Hot Summer Nights tour, which kicked off June 1 and included two dozen dates. The other acts on the bill were Oakland’s own En Vogue, “Beautiful Girls” singer Sean Kingston and Grammy-winning reggae-pop act Shaggy.
The latter co-headlined the tour with TLC and actually went on last at Concord. Yet despite Shaggy’s ample collection of hits — including “Boombastic,” “In the Summertime,” “Angel” and “It Wasn’t Me” — it was clear from surveying the T-shirts in the crowd and hearing the roars from the fans that TLC was definitely main attraction on the night.
Backed by a four-piece band and accompanied by an equal number of male dancers, TLC kicked things off by going back to the first album — 1992’s “Ooooooohhh… On the TLC Tip” — for “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg.”
The joyous, playful “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg” is primetime Left Eye — a tremendous showcase for her rapping abilities — and thus a great way to illustrate right from that her recorded vocals would be a big part of the show.
One of the biggest selling points of TLC was how well the three very-different-sounding vocalists worked together. Chilli would take the high road with her crystal clear and classically strong R&B vocals, while T-Boz delivered the low, smokey cool counterpoint. And then, of course, Left Eye would just launch the whole thing into the stratosphere with her stellar rhymes.
Watkins and Thomas both sounded ’90s-era strong as they continued on through two more first-album tracks — “What About Your Friends” and “Baby-Baby-Baby” — before diving into “CrazySexyCool” territory for the first time for a strong take on “Red Light Special.”
They’d draw four tracks in all — from the 10 performed in the set — from that 1994 multiplatinum-selling blockbuster. They’d also draw strongly from the 1999 triumph “FanMail,” including for one emotional ballad that turned out to be one of the true highlights of the night.
“This next song we are about to sing is very near to my heart,” Watkins said in the introduction to “Unpretty,” a song that strikes a blow against the conception that one needs to change in order to be meet someone else’s standard of beauty. “Because I wrote it from the heart.”
The big finale, of course, was “Waterfalls” — possibly the greatest pop song of the ’90s. And it certainly pleased the fans, who sang along from start to finish with gusto. Yet, I also can’t help but think it was a missed opportunity.
The Left Eye rap in the song is the best known and most highly cherished moment of her career. It’s also one that is so wonderfully documented in the “Waterfalls” video. If TLC had used the moment to actually showcase Lopes on the big video screens — for the first time of the night — the place would’ve erupted in a fashion that may well have been heard in San Ramon.
As it stood, however, the TLC show was still a resounding success.
En Vogue was also entertaining during its half-hour-plus set, with the three talented vocalists — Terry Ellis, Cindy Herron and Rhona Bennett — first taking the stage to perform to the hit “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” from the 1992 sophomore effort “Funky Divas.”
The Oakland troupe continued on to wow the hometown East Bay crowd with such favorites as “Hold On,” “Whatta Man” and “Free Your Mind.”
En Vogue went on after Sean Kingston, who opened the show with a set that included the hits “Beautiful Girls” and “Eenie Meenie.” Shaggy went on last, opening his set with “Mood” and continuing on through such crowd pleasers as “In the Summertime,” “Boombastic” and “Angel.”
TLC setlist:
1, “Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg”
2, “What About Your Friends”
3, “Baby-Baby-Baby”
4, “Red Light Special”
5, “Silly Ho”
6, “Unpretty”
7, “Creep”
8, “Diggin’ on You”
9, “No Scrubs”
10, “Waterfalls”