All-out — Missy Elliott had a fleet of 20 backup dancers join her at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, plus stage lifts, pyrotechnic bursts, multiple colorful costumes, audience LED bracelets, futuristic video sequences and all other sorts of other flair in her show. It was a rapid-fire barrage of special effects from one of hip-hop’s seasoned stars on her first headlining tour.
Hold on a second. You really mean to tell me that this was Elliott’s first solo headlining tour? That the game-changing musician never singularly led the bill on a tour in the late ‘90s or early aughts? Not right after her four Grammy wins? After any one of her six full-length albums? Or her record-breaking, chart-topping hit songs? Not after “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly),” or “Hot Boyz”? Not even after “Get Your Freak On”?
And you mean to tell me that Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott — a musical icon — had never, ever performed as a solo artist in Cleveland?
That’s right. But this year, that’s changed.
(Photo, and lead photo, courtesy Derek Blanks with crowdMGMT)
Maybe Wednesday, Aug. 14 — less than a year since Elliott entered the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as its first female hip-hop artist inductee — was good timing for the musician to finally bring a tour into town. (Rock Hall President and CEO Greg Harris even appeared onstage on Wednesday to hug and congratulate her for getting “music’s highest honor.”)
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“Fans have been asking me to tour forever but I wanted to wait until I felt the time was right,” Elliott explained in a press release ahead of the show, “because I knew if I was ever going to do it, I had to do it big, and I had to do it with family.”
And she hauled that “go big or go home" energy to her massive, futuristic Cleveland voyage. She wasn't alone; plenty of audience members also got in the spirit, dressing up in flashy Elliott-influenced outfits for the night.
(Photo by Annie Nickoloff)
The night's excellence didn't stop at Elliott. Featuring longtime collaborators Busta Rhymes, Ciara and Timbaland as the stop’s openers, the Out of This World tour was a night of throwback nostalgia — well-worn hit songs combined with tech-fueled, futuristic energy, all squeezed into each set.
They were so crammed into Elliott’s performance specifically, that her 70-minute-long romp absolutely zipped by, much like the rocket ships that occasionally hovered in the venue’s display screens. The vocalist's sequence of influential songs seamlessly slipped into one another (and were occasionally cut a little short). The end result was electrifying, witnessing this major moment for one of hip-hop’s brightest stars — even if a part of me questioned if an action-packed show like this felt just a little bit overdue.
After all, there were 30 years of Missy Elliott's music-making to celebrate.
She had to do it big.
(Photo courtesy Alexis Smith with crowdMGMT)
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