Fugees played their first show in 15 years at NYC's Pier 17 (pics, videos, setlist)
On Tuesday (9/21), the Fugees announced a reunion tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Score. It’s an arena tour that begins in November, but Ms. Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel prefaced the tour with a “pop-up show” in NYC that happened last night (9/22). You had to earn tickets via Global Citizen to get in, and the venue was unannounced until just hours before doors. It ended up being The Rooftop at Pier 17, an outdoor rooftop venue that’s much smaller than the arenas the Fugees will be playing later this fall.
The show reportedly started about three hours late and lasted about 45 minutes, with seven songs played. Here’s an excerpt of Rolling Stone‘s review:
Three hours after fans began loading in for the event, the crowd was still being kept busy by Hill’s longtime tour companion DJ Reborn, their energy increasingly zapped with each passing song. Tickets for the free show pledged a 7 p.m. start time that soon shifted to an 8:30 p.m. start for the DJ and a nearly 10 p.m. start for the Fugees. The tardiness was owed in part to a delayed soundcheck that pushed back the entry time half an hour. Also, punctuality has quite famously never been Hill’s strong suit. At a certain point, she stops being considered late and the fans are simply early.
When the Fugees set kicked off with a seamless transition from the theatrical introduction “The Score” into “How Many Mics,” the wavering fans erupted. It was almost easy to forget the size of the crowd; the group performed just as much to each other as they did to the audience. At times, they huddled together, carving space for intimacy as if there weren’t thousands in front of them and even more set to view the performance when it airs as part of Global Citizen Live on September 25th.
Hammering through two major highlights of The Score, “Zealots” and “Fu-Gee-La,” the Fugees fostered an electricity between them that was as collaborative as it was competitive. The trio didn’t miss a beat as they traded bar-for-bar and filled in ad-libs with succinct synergy. If you didn’t know better, you’d never guess more than a decade had passed since they’d last shared a stage.
Read the rest of the review here.
Phones weren’t allowed, but some fans figured out how to get some videos taken anyway. Watch those and see pictures and the full setlist below.
The proper tour includes a much bigger NYC-area show at Newark’s Prudential Center on November 26. Tickets go on sale Friday (9/24) at 10 AM, and presales are underway now. All dates here.
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Fugees @ Pier 17 – 9/22/21 Setlist (via)
The Score
How Many Mics
Zealots
Fu-Gee-La
Killing Me Softly With His Song (Lori Lieberman cover)
Ready or Not
No Woman, No Cry (Bob Marley & The Wailers cover)
