I have to admit that a TLC concert minus Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes could have been a disaster but when you have strong songs and a competent team around you, Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins and Rozonda ‘Chilli’ Thomas make this work.
Left Eye died in a car crash in Honduras in 2002. Most of her work on a fourth album ‘3D’ was completed before her death and released after but this show centres on the three albums Left Eye created with T-Boz and Chilli during the 90s.
Left Eye is very much an equal part of this show. She hasn’t been replaced by another singer. T and C don’t even cover for her. Lisa’s vocals came right out through the speakers, just as they did in life and the actual original voice is still there as they were on the original recordings.
TLC also use a real band as well as a live DJ who manages to pad a nine song set into more than an hour long performance. Those nine songs are all hits, all released from 1992 to 1992 and representing a time in R&B where quality still meant something over appearance.
TLC does have a legacy. It was almost like a changing of the guard when they passed the baton to Destiny’s Child and set Beyonce of her musical journey. R&B was vibrant then. En Vogue were their contemporaries and The Supremes their predecessors.
Had Left Eye not left when she did, who knows what the next decade may have brought us … but it didn’t … but we still have T and C allowing the legacy to be heard.
TLC setlist, Melbourne, 9 November 2022
Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg (from Ooh …On The TLC Tip, 1992)
What About Your Friends (from Ooh …On The TLC Tip, 1992)
Baby-Baby-Baby (from Ooh …On The TLC Tip, 1992)
Diggin’ on You (from CrazySexyCool, 1994)
Creep (from CrazySexyCool, 1994)
Unpretty (from FanMail, 1999)
Red Light Special (from CrazySexyCool, 1994)
No Scrubs (from FanMail, 1999)
Waterfalls (from CrazySexyCool, 1994)
The TLC at the Palais Melbourne was their own headline show in Australia. They also appeared on the Fridayz Live event with Brisbane and Sydney still to go.
Dates are:
11 November, Brisbane, Showgrounds
12 November, Sydney, Giants Stadium
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