Yeah, man! Usher certainly didn’t have a Case of the Mondays on November 10 at Verizon Center.   Usher: The UR Experience was a sensational spectacle and an excellent way to start the week.

DJ Cassidy and August Alsina started off the show, but the true openers were the musicians at the 7^th & F Gallery Place Metro entrance. They rocked! The energy was amazing and many people in the crowd gave them money or danced along to hits like “No Diggity.” One of the drummers even added live flames to his performance. Inside the arena, DJ Cassidy kept a nice flow of old and new hits going and danced along to everything from David Bowie to Bell Biv Devoe. He was dressed like Michael Jackson in the same way that Bruno Mars or Justin Timberlake might, but it didn’t seem lame because of his genuine enthusiasm. Next was August Alsina, of whom I’ve never ever heard. Women in their late teens and early 20s went nuts, but I was far from impressed by his unnecessarily raunchy lyrics and pimp demeanor with his half naked dancers. One of them kept bringing him water to sip, not that it helped him actually hit any notes. I spent most of his set scrolling through Facebook. To say that I couldn’t wait for Usher is a huge understatement. Next!

I was in for the treat of my life because not only does Usher still look good and sound good, but he knows how to put on one heck of a show. “My Way” was a fitting opener because the dancers that accompanied him weren’t just glorified booty jigglers that shadow most solo artists – this group meant business. The flips and splits and leaps would have been spectacular on a level surface, but the stage had platforms that rose and fell throughout the night while performers were on them. Two complete bands played and danced their way through “Love in This Club” and “You Remind Me.” At one point, I counted 9 musicians on stage, but 10 if you count Usher when he rose from underneath the stage playing a set of golden drums! There were pyrotechnics, lasers, tennis shoe changes, awesome graphics, and even an optical illusion that I had never seen before. During “Lil’ Freak,” a chair dancer performed on a platform in front of a screen that was live streaming Usher’s performance while he sang with his back to her. She was positioned so that it seemed like the face on the screen was speaking directly to her or the hand on the screen was guiding her movements. The artistry and coolness of it were very impressive.

Usher is one of those few artists who is truly about rhythm and blues, with songs that make you want to shake or want to sway. He jumped from funky grooves like “Twisted” to ballads like “Let it Burn” and “U Got It Bad” (which are the same song, let’s be real) with ease. Bieber, take note. Actually growing up in the music industry means that you focus on improving your craft, your style and your presence, and Usher has done that and more with this new tour. His fans will certainly be thrilled with the numerous facets (and numerous songs – over 20!) of this concert and “Scream” “Yeah” for “More.”

About The Author

Stephanie Taylor

Co-Editor/Entertainment Reporter

She may be a traffic engineer by day (hence the ‘stopsigngirl’ alias), but do not let her technical skills or multiple calculators fool you. Stephanie Taylor has a way with words. She will destroy any opponent in Scrabble, and get 50 points for using all 7 of her letters in the word “destroy.” She can a-n-n-i-h-i-l-a-t-e you in a spelling bee, having competed in no less than ten as a child. She uses correct punctuation in her text messages. It’s no wonder that copy editing comes naturally to her, and she is happy to fine tune the work of other writers before it reaches TRR readers.

Proofreading is not all that Stephanie loves to do. Regular reading without the proof is just fine, and she also loves to write. In fact, Steph has been writing since the tender age of 6 when she penned her would-be bestseller Mouse in Jail. It “would be” if all literary critics were in Kindergarten. Since elementary school, Stephanie has helped publish newsletters, yearbooks, and the Arts & Entertainment section of The Rice Thresher, Rice University’s student newspaper.

Stephanie’s other gigs have included singing her heart out in the chorus of My Fair Lady in Houston, doing improv comedy in front of hundreds of people in Atlanta, and teaching A.P. English in Los Angeles. She loves to travel and have cultural adventures like tubing down a river in Ecuador, dancing in a South Asian festival, or riding a ferry from Italy for 19 hours just to get real Greek food. Cooking and Yoga are also among Stephanie’s list of favorite things to do, but she cannot do them at the same time.

This native Texan genuinely adores reporting on entertainment as much as she loves to entertain, and is looking forward to learning more about what the D.C. area has to offer and sharing that news with you.

Stephanie Taylor also likes to write about herself in the third person.

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