“Ay slim! You comin’ over here and take my picture?”

That was what I heard when I stepped into the participants’ entrance of the Greensboro Coliseum on Oct 15.

When I turned, I was shocked to see none other than the 6-foot-6 frame of Houston hot-boy and Neptune’s protege, Slim Thug.

My homecoming had officially begun at that moment.

The backstage atmosphere was calm yet exciting. Being around famous people, you don’t want to be a groupie but you have to do your job. Lucky for me these guys were the southern gentlemen that they were raised to be.

No egos, big heads or other body parts were exposed.

The “Flow,” or as we know them, Slim Thug, Paul Wall and Mike Jones, started out the show by coming from the hood of a car that was on stage. Together they performed their signature song “Still Tippin.”

They then broke into performances of their well known singles. And some that weren’t so well known. The crowd seemed responsive to them, but if you weren’t familiar with either of their albums, you we’re probably one of the many sitting down.

Mister Rogers,Boss Hog Outlaws deejay, said that the crowd was semi-responsive to the performance.

“For the crowd not to have known a lot of the songs that were being performed, they did good keeping up the morale,” Rogers said, “because audience participation does make a difference in the performance.”

After the Texas boys’ performances the “Hustle” portion of the show began.

Ciara a. k .a. Miss Goodies gave a great performance. With a not so great response from the crowd, Ciara had her work cut out for her.

Yet with the help of her four dancers, she was the most energetic performer of the night.

Dancer Korey Fitzhugh said that the crowd was feeling Ciara, but was leaning more towards the rap portion of the show.

“It was straight. We ended our set early because she could tell that the crowd was getting restless. We did our thing; we had good energy and so did the crowd,” Fitzhugh said, “we didn’t want to wear out our welcome.”

Singing her signature songs,

“1, 2 Step” and “Goodies”, amongst other vignettes from her album. She also danceddanced to various other artists’ songs.

After her performance, with no host to speak of, the crowd became restless until the most awaited performer of the night took the stage- everybody’s favorite trapper, Young Jeezy.

The stage was strewn with fake snow and a hug inflatable snowman. From the first word to the last, Jeezy kept the crowd’s attention and had the night’s previous performers on the sidelines rocking to his flow. The crowd sung along with every song that he did, and it in turn made his performance one of the better of the night.

Being the illusive guy that he is, as quickly as he was onstage, he was off and headed to the afterparty at the Venue.

The last two performers, T.I. and Lil’ John, to my surprise, received a little less than welcome audience response. After Jeezy, most of the crowd left, to prepare for the afterparty. Sad to say, but it’s true.

Lil’ John had the best stage presence of all the performers. His backdrop consisted of a huge likeness of himself, that moved up and down with the bass within the song. It was omplete with dreads and a gold grill.

The overall response of the participants was “he stole the show with that backdrop.”

Lil’ John and T.I. performed some of their most recent singles and most popular past ones, but it was to no avail. Half-way through T.I.’s performance people started to leave. Guess the King can’t reign forever.

From the performers perspective, the Greensboro crowd wasn’t as responsive as they thought they would have been.

During some general conversation with the performers backstage, they felt like the crowd could have given a better response.

But, if they didnt know, this is A&T. They were lucky to get the response they did. We are a tough crowd.

The show in itself was good. It was better than summer jam. Yet, the show next year is going to have to do a lot to top the headliners from this year.

With all the road managers, performers, groupies, grills, diamonds, shades and little people such as myself, the Greensboro Coliseum was the “it” place to be.

• Concert Review By Candra Whitley