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Concert Review: Black Eyed Peas
By Irene Maslanik ’07
STAFF WRITER

It was hot. It felt as if the sun was our constant companion, beating down us, making its presence unforgettable. It was as if we had wandered around Rome for hours. We hiked up hills, through community parks and gardens, around neighborhoods, wedding parties, and children playing. Finally, we saw police roadblocks and emergency medical vehicles and then we knew that we had reached our destination.

Where were we? My roommates and I had arrived in the Piazza San Giovanni. This particular piazza, like many throughout Italy, is home to a beautiful, magnificent church, but we were not there for art history or religious fervor. We journeyed through Rome not to worship, but to rock!

To the left of the church sat an enormous stage flanked with big screens and lighting displays. The cement and paving that surrounded the piazza ana pex of major city thoroughfares was filled. There were people reclining in the grass, or milling about looking for the best view, and of course, there were the desperate few standing restlessly close to the stage, anxiously waiting for the concert to begin.

We had discovered this concert one night when we stayed in Pompeii. While we were getting ready to go out on the town, we switched on the television to MTV, which was of course in Italian. A commercial came on advertising a series of free music festivals put on by Cornetto, an ice cream brand. They advertised Sting and the Black Eyed Peas as their main attractions.

After standing packed like sardines for literally hours listening to a rap group that wore gas masks, a middle-aged singer/songwriter who was booed, a teenage screecher, and two Italian punk bands, finally the stage was set for the arrival of Fergie, Will.I.Am, Apl.de.ap, and Taboo.

The heat, the crowd, and the gas mask crew were worth it. Nothing can possibly compare to hearing “My Humps” accompanied live by Hip Hop flute – a genre of flute performance I did not even know existed. I will never forget singing and dancing to “My Humps” surrounded by Italians doing the same and wondering to myself if they had any clue what “what’cha gonna do with all that junk, all that junk inside your trunk” really meant.

Nothing I have experienced in my life compares to connecting with thousands of people whose language I did not even speak. Standing there with my friends and some Australian gentlemen we had befriended, and singing along to “Where is the Love?” with thousands of young Italians in one voice was an amazing experience.

Traveling abroad taught me so much about tolerance, flexibility, and understanding. With cell phones blazing and lighters lit like a bad cliché, we all swayed as one body and asked as one voice, “where is the love?” Three days later I left Rome and flew home. A month has passed since that night but the feeling of belonging to an international congregation of young people is still palpable for me today.

Walking back from the concert to our hotel with the massive throng was almost as much fun as the concert itself. I miss belonging to a group that did not know or need to know my name. Music has that effect on people, especially underneath the stars of Rome in the hottest summer month.