Today Rihanna preformed at the Formula 1 Grand Prix festival in Singapore. Unfortunately this also provided an opportunity to test out Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) commitment to this information blackout they've been insisting on during the final leg of the Diamonds World Tour.
In terms of information relating to Rihanna's travel from Thailand to Singapore Rihanna herself couldn't have been more co-operative posting lots of Tweets/Instagram pictures making it clear when she had left Thailand and when she had arrived in Singapore. One of this posts included the fact that when Rihanna handed her passport over at Thai passport control the border guard instantly handed Rihanna a picture of herself to autograph giving Rihanna an interesting story to tell. To me that suggests that the Thai authorities were very keen for Rihanna to provide information about her departure. That could indicate that the Thai authorities are beginning to think the US and the UK are not as reliable allies as they had once thought. Annoyingly Rihanna's friend and travelling companion Melissa Forde couldn't have been more unhelpful. Although she did take to Twitter/Instagram to indicate that they were leaving Thailand she went onto imply that they could be returning. Rihanna's other travelling companions remained silent. To me this indicates that a formal order to lift the information blackout has not been given and the management are hoping to get away with it now that the main island hopping part of the tour is over.
This impression was reinforced by the complete lack of official information provided about Rihanna's actual performance although Rihanna herself had a pretty good excuse for not sending out Tweets/Instagrams. Fortunately the unofficial information available was excellent. As it's already been established that Rihanna had done away with the scheduled concert costume changes in favour of a single outfit the first thing everybody was interested to found out what outfit Rihanna had 'chosen.' Although it did feature a cape the outfit itself was politically unremarkable being just a simple dress. However Rihanna later revealed that simple dress had been made especially for her by Raf Simons a Belgian fashion designer who is the creative director at Dior and unfortunately known as RAF. This was a problem because RAF is the acronym used to identify the Royal Air Force - the British air force. It is also the acronym used to identify the Red Army Faction who are sometimes also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang.
Although I pretty sure they were referenced heavily during one of the 2012 Olympic ceremonies for those who don't know the Baader-Meinhof gang were Marxist terrorists in West-Germany during the 1960's. 1970's and 1980's. The late 1960's to early 1980's were of course very much the golden age of international terrorism which featured multiple aircraft hijackings for ransoms including the 1976 hijacking of an Air France passenger jet that ended at Entebbe airport in Uganda with a little help from Kenya. It also featured the 1972 attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games. With the current terrorism situation in Kenya and the German General Election taking place this choice of outfit struck me as being in extremely bad taste. Mind you it was in nowhere near as bad taste as the US Navy deciding to crash one of it's NH-60S Knighthawk helicopters attached to the 5th Fleet into the Red Sea. This of course forced the Israeli, Egyptian, both Sudanese, the Bahraini, Saudi and possibly Eritrean governments to liaise with the US over a rescue operation while trying to work out if it was all a Rihanna reference. Needless to say US President Barack Obama will be meeting Palestinian 'President' Abbas on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Apart from the outfit the other big talking point of Rihanna's Singapore concert was always going to be the set-list. That's because although it has been presented as such the Singapore concert was not strictly speaking part of the Diamonds World Tour. Instead it was part of the entertainment surrounding the Formula 1 Grand Prix race weekend. It continues on Monday (23/9/13) with a Justin Beiber concert.Therefore I was hoping that Rihanna would send all her tour equipment ahead to Australia and just do a sort of greatest hits concerts. Unfortunately management decided to put on the full Diamonds World Tour stage show even though the allotted time meant that the full set-list couldn't be performed and some songs would have to be cut. Personally I would have just scrubbed the entire fourth act (Take A Bow) because the ballady style didn't really suit the occasion.
Unfortunately though management saw an opportunity to make a political point and decided to cut "Cockiness." With A$AP Rocky featuring on the remix this was supposed to promote discussion about whether the management were apologising for their cockiness in thinking anyone in the business would fall for all these rumoured liaisons between Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, Chris Brown, Drake and their associated pregnancy rumours. "Love The Way You Lie" was also cut which could equally be interpreted as an attempt to promote discussion about whether Rihanna was done with the domestic violence themes of the song or its coded references to me through the songs main artist Eminem or its Shakespearean roots. Finally "Loveeeeeee Song" was cut in order to give the impression that Rihanna is doing just fine so we don't need to worry about her anymore. After all she clearly no longer needs "love and affection." Sadly though that last point was contradicted somewhat by Rihanna's use of the Raf Simons' cape to make her look like a superhero. This could possibly have been a reference to the Ani DiFranco song "Superhero" which is rarely listened to by people who are doing just fine. That said anytime you are a bit stoned and wearing a cape it is always really tempting to use it to pretend you're a superhero.
Since the end of the concert Rihanna has taken to Twitter/Instagram to indicate that she has left Singapore but not indicated where she is heading too. I am significantly confident that Rihanna is now heading on to Australia. However due to the deception and breach of trust associated with the Thailand trips I will need that confirmed.
I will of course also need the management to buck their fu*king ideas.
22:25 on 22/9/13 (UK date)
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