50 Cent requests that the arena’s lights are switched off so that the crowd of 15,000 can light up the room themselves. It’s time for classic cut ‘Many Men’. This is an anthem. Everyone raps the verse and sings the chorus at the top of their lungs until the song’s end. It doesn’t get much better than this.
“F*ck it. Let’s go.”
Without warning there’s a huge explosion of confetti and ‘In Da Club’ hits. Nope, this is the one. No matter what remote area of the World 50 visits, no matter how big another song could get for him, this is the record he can’t escape from. It will receive the craziest reaction from the live crowd. When the song finishes, it’s been an hour since G-Unit touched the stage. They pretend to leave before an encore although I have a feeling that even if the night really ended here, it wouldn’t be much of a disappointment.
A few minutes of the DJ telling the crowd to get louder and louder eventually leads to ’21 Questions’, ‘Pilot’, ‘Gunz Come Out’, the inspiring hook of ‘If I Can’t’, the bass heavy ‘Baby By Me’, ‘Stunt 101’ and ‘Patiently Waiting’. The catalogue is crazy.
Towards the end of the night, energy is still high. 50 jokes about going all night and all jokes aside, he probably could. ‘Hate It Or Love It’, ‘How We Do’ and ‘Candy Shop’ are all highlights. Even after a countless amount of crowd winners, you could list a handful of records that weren’t performed that would have received great reaction too. “I’ll get fined. Y’all got a curfew, ten something? I don’t give a f*ck.”
More time goes by and 50 responds to those running things backstage who tell him his time is up. “They say I got two minutes. What the f*ck is that? What can you do in two minutes?” He runs up to the DJ booth, takes the laptop himself and plays Kidd Kidd’s ‘I’m A G’.
All in all, it was surprising how little tracks from The Beauty Of Independence and The Beast Is G-Unit were played. This made it feel more like a 50 Cent & Friends performance rather than a G-Unit show, though you’ll hear complaints from neither us nor The Unit. If you left the O2 Arena knowing only one thing, it’s that 50 Cent has hits on top of hits. He ran through classic records like it was nothing. G-Unit was definitely in the house.
Watch some fan captured footage on YouTube.
– by Akaash Sharma
Discussion about this post