32 minutes of affable hip-hop

November 03, 2009|Sarah Rodman, Globe Staff

After the initial shock wore off, it was hard to decide whether brevity was a virtue or an embarrassment when it came to the Sean Kingston show at Natick High School on Sunday.

In the virtue column, the 19-year-old hip-hop-pop star’s 32-minute concert included adequate performances of all of his hits before an appreciative teenage crowd. There was no filler and no frills - he performed with a DJ on the in-progress stage set of the school’s upcoming musical. Kingston was amiable if not particularly dynamic as he roamed the stage, side to side, singing to bouncy, bass-heavy club tracks such as “Face Drop,’’ “Fire Burning,’’ and the breezy “Beautiful Girls.’’ He came, he played, he left, and going deeper into his two fun but fluffy albums probably would have been tedious.

On the flip side, he does have those two albums’ worth of material to his credit, and making more of an effort at staging an actual show would have lent more credibility to the idea that Kingston is an artist worth watching. The set time was more appropriate for an act playing a multi-artist radio show than for a headliner interested in longevity.

The other problematic part of Kingston’s performance was that it was shorter than the wait between his set and that of openers the New Boyz.

The California duo of Legacy and Ben J, both 17, bounced around the stage barking out their kicky, identical, novelty jams - including current hit “You’re a Jerk’’ and the booty homage “Bunz’’ - with a lot of energy and good will but little finesse or charm.

Several young local bands were added to the undercard to fill out the bill, and given their similar looks and sounds, apparently Fall Out Boy has been the most influential rock group of the past five years.

Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com.