i can say MSG in chinese!: Akon in Shanghai

I went to see Akon in Shanghai.

It couldn't be helped.

I also took a party bus. Feel free to judge, but it was a blast.

Our night started at Windows Too, a bar over by Jing’an Temple. We received a free Carlsberg with our sweet neon green party bus bracelet but we had to drink it quickly because we arrived so late. Traffic is a monster on Saturday nights. We should have taken the subway, in hindsight, but the bad weather and trek in high heels seemed daunting. Note to self: allow more time for taxis on weekend nights or venture underground.

Bethanie and I scarfed down some very reasonably priced chicken fingers and we hurried out to our “party bus” ride. Besides the small neon lights above our seats and the cooler of Suntory beer, there wasn’t too much party on the bus. It was a fairly quiet ride to the Mercedez-Benz arena, which is on the Expo fairgrounds in Pudong (across the river). This arena looks like a spaceship and is pretty spiffy.

As expected, we had awful seats at the very top of the arena. I mentioned in my tennis post about the poor event planning in Shanghai. There seems to be an aspiration to be a modern, hip city with expensive and hot tickets to big events. It’s all about appearances, so they build beautiful stadiums and overcharge for tickets. What happens then, because there is not a market for these activities (specifically professional tennis and hip-hop concerts), is that they do not sell enough tickets and the venue is half-full. So I’m sure Andy Murray and Akon were like, “uh…” but anyway.

The arena was pretty nice and we had a ton of space, so we just made a dance party with the six of us. When Akon came on, we cheered raucously and generally shocked the Chinese nationals around us.

Fun.

Glitterati.

If you aren’t familiar with Akon, he has many hit songs and one viral internet video. He did sing said viral video song, which was probably the highlight of my evening. Also, Kate, he was wearing a pearl necklace.

Another bonus of said concert, Akon removed the top half of his clothes during his music set. It started with his white jacket, then button down, then undershirt, then tank top…and then nothing at all. It was a beautiful thing.

P.S. Akon's MC/DJ was wearing a utilikilt.

After the show, the party bus took us back to Airplane Bar, which is our name for D-10. Inside, it looks like an airplane! It’s hilarious. We also ran into some teenage expats who were desperately trying to find Akon. But he wasn’t out…at least with us. I wonder if those girls’ parents knew what their kids were up to, because Shanghai is a big city and they couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. It was odd and terrifying.