The haze visibly worsened when John Legend came on but his performance made it all worth it.
But it did not look that way initially. Before John Legend’s set, we overheard a lot of people complaining about the haze and some making plans to leave if the air doesn’t clear soon. But they quietened down when John Legend was introduced and he took over there on.
He started his set with a bunch of songs that were from his new album, which pretty much meant most of us were unfamiliar with it. The first set was a lot of slow, out-of-tune hum along. The crowd was vastly disengaged with his performance and most of the onlookers got bored after a while and went to other zones.
The best we ever heard
I became a fan of “Tonight (Best You Ever Had)”, one of the songs he played that did catch my ear. I did think the slow tunes were a strange, stark contrast to the lightning-fast race that was due to start later on the evening but it was refreshing to catch my breath amid his soft, soothing crooning.
Most of the crowd had slowly cleared, when they realized John Legend was not going to perform his wonder hit so early into his set. I overheard one person saying, “Damn he is really nothing without All Of Me. I mean all of me is really bored by the rest of him.”
But it was all worth it
But eventually, he did deliver his mega hit only after the skies turned dark. The audience happily lapped it up, with some swaying slowly along to his piano and luring vocals. We saw a lot of phones go up into the air and many excitedly singing along with their favourite verses of the songs.
What a perfect note he ended on.
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