Singer has me more obsessed after second Lasgidi concert

"We have all always felt her presence when we plugged in our headsets and listened to her croon and soothe us with her voice, but last night, in flesh and blood, she made a pool and invited us to take a swim.

"I really can’t speak for everyone on this, but I jumped in headfirst into the magical waters...

" held everything together. She was the force that powered the whole of 120 minutes of unbridled delight.

"There was an aura which flowed from her very presence on that stage; the instrumentalists caught it, her back-up singers drew from it, and the audience, among which I sat and stood, and jumped, and danced, and screamed, was surely electrified by it."

You wouldn't know, really, but the words you just read above are from a year ago.

I had attended the Asa Live In Concert, 2016 when I wrote that; but now, after the encore last night, April 29 2017, at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, these words remain accurately true.

I could literally copy the whole of that article and paste here and there’d be not a single phrase, let alone a full sentence out of place.

But impressively, Asa’s concert this year was waaay more than that.

The amazing show she put up last year and the relentless media buzz created around this edition saw to it that more people came through.

The atmosphere was more charged, you could literally smell the expectation off people as you walked past them lobbying around at Eko Hotel, you could hear it in the animated conversations as people hurried to settle in after the intermission.

By the time the lighting guys darkened the hall with a well-rehearsed, well-timed flick, a roar erupted because everyone knew… that hall was about to be illuminated with glory and bathed in the real sound of music.

So it was that Asa emerged from the shadows like a goddess stepping into the rapturous adoration of her followers, and from the very moment she crooned the first lines of ‘Awe', I and others in the room caught her enchantment.

By the time she sang ‘Bibanke,’‘Fire on the mountain,’‘Jailer’ and the mum song, ‘Beautiful,’ it had become a full-blown frenzy up in that hall.

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The most obvious ingredient added to Asa’s magical concoction was the 30-man orchestra that accompanied her renditions with the lilting, ear-caressing tunes from their violins, bass guitars, etc.

The lighting was again top notch, the stage setting, the organization and co-ordination, sound [bar some little hitches]… the seamless transition from song to song, her sense of humour, the rapport with the audience, everything that blew my mind last year was revamped to more amazing effects.

If anyone could top all that stuff I saw last year, it had to be Asa. No one else.

She had set the bar so high with the first concert that it would have been astounding for anyone else to match it, let alone surpass it.

She promised us an encore and for those who pronounce the word as un-core and us whose Yoruba tongue keep making us call it hen-core, she delivered prime goods.

The thrill for me was slightly less intense than last year’s but that’s easily blamed on the reduction of shock value, not because Asa’s performance wasn’t electrifying.

Every song tingled my spine, made the hair on body rise, gave me goose bumps. I jumped out of my seat more times than I could count.

And when she performed my personal favourite songs, ‘Dreamer girl,’‘Preacher Man,’ and ‘Eyo’ I peaked in excitement.

Last night’s concert was the cheapest service I ever got for 10K, the one time in my whole life that I’ve parted with 10K with so much eagerness and happiness.

So, my favourite artist has promised to come again next year. That’d appropriately be called The Trilogy and she does not even need to release new songs to run the show like she’s done these past two times.

Whether Asa releases new songs or not, she’s my favourite artiste for life and these two concerts I’ve attended confirm the soundness of that choice.

By the time Asa comes again around this time next year, I know I still wouldn’t have gotten over this buzz, but as always, I’d be there to feel her magic again.

And as always, Asa will surely not put me to shame.