I hate to review Ghanaian events and this is simply because my out of the box experience and expectations far out-run what is mostly delivered. And the unsustainable argument ‘this is a Ghanaian standard’ has been overused so do not invoke it this time again—it doesn’t work.
My revulsion becomes even higher if there are ‘no obvious financial constraints’ and when after many years, organizers cannot bring themselves to catch up with the existing global excellence. Who repeats the same mistakes over and over—-except Charter House and Ghanaians…
The 2014 Vodafone Ghana Music Awards was not completely catastrophic but considering the many years that the event has been hosted, Charter House could have given us something deserving of applauds. This, they could have simply achieved by drawing the lines where they were supposed to be—and not allow artistes and certain people to run the show like their personal outdooring event.
The Stage Design
Watching this from home, the stage reminded me of the early discotheque days, with lights which were often—though not true, considered as having a possibility of inviting epilepsy. It was not therefore shocking when several people on social media kept talking about how those lights could possibly blind someone.
It was an award show and not a rock concert. We understand these lights add some sort of ‘beauty’ to stage performances but I felt they were too much, too bright and served as take-away instead of add-on.
I do acknowledge there is not much of flexibility out there when it comes to stage designs and as such, mounting platforms in Ghana, in our tight and somewhat fixed auditoriums comes with the greatest conundrum of our time but we have control over what we put up there—and these lights must be cut down.
Remember it was Ghana Music Awards and not Ghana Rock Concert with the 80’s appeal!
Artistes Performances
This was where many of us kept asking; what is going on and who was in charge of time. Must every Ghanaian artiste perform at the Ghana Music Awards and by this I mean, the number of performers and the time they spent on stage trying their luck with the live band or lip-synching their way through became a pain instead of the projected thrill.
Look, at such awards night, the performance list should be cut to a maximum of 5 and these selected few should be those who could set the place on fire, musically. We couldn’t provide great entertainment and I would be worried if we were asked to be in-charge of fire extinguishers so I mean, those who could have thrown out some decent but electrifying performances.
And it seems Charter House knew those who could have rocked the stage but simply ignored them—and decided to try their luck by overfeeding us with poorly cooked food. Let me be forward with this, Shatta Wale should have performed and if he wanted to fly a Private Jet to the Conference Centre, he should have been given that because patrons would have gotten their money worth.
And those of us who watched it FREE would have traded our good night sleep for something well-meaning. Forget Shatta Wale’s absurd ethics and demands; he should have been brought in—-even if it meant that Davido and Iyanya were to be cut off. After all, the latter was a complete disappointment.