It's a cold war, you better know what you're fighting for.

Janelle Monáe is one of the finest artists we've had the pleasure of witnessing live. There - that's it. There aren't the superlatives to describe with integrity the experience, but we'll try our very best to articulate our thoughts into words. First up, Monáe is one of the most unique artists working in the music business today. She really is. She is phenomenally hard-working, incredibly talented and most importantly - she "gets it". She knows what makes a pop star, and what makes a fucking amazing pop star. She knows how to produce music which will be lauded as influential for decades to come, and in terms of stagecraft, how to set the audience alight.

We were first introduced to the Mon-ay a couple of years ago by S&N's other senior editor and fell in love with her work immediately. The idea of a genuine conceptual album (fuck off Sasha Fierce) was fabulous, and Metropolis (Suite I): The Chase is possibly one of the finest EPs we've ever listened to; the most incredible combination of musical styles and instruments, paired with one moment heart-breaking the next foot-stomping songwriting, topped off with a glorious voice. Two unbearable years later Metropolis (Suites II & III): The ArchAndroid was released and quite simply, gave us the album we had been lusting for, since, forever. A piece of work which could put in a genuine claim for the accolade 'epic', featuring two orchestral overtures, an actual bona-fide amazing storyline, musical influences drawing from everyone-amazing-ever and that rare quality of shaming the listener into heavy guilt from listening to just one or two songs plucked from the tracklist - The ArchAndroid was made to be listened to from start to finish, and commands your attention as such.

The show: there was no doubt about it that we had to catch her live, as we knew we'd never be able to get away with paying £14 for the privilege again. The support was actually very good - her name is Spark and she's got a cracking voice to go with very good pop tunes which don't really sound like anything else at the minute... she seemed a tad awkward/embarrassed on stage but she's only 18 which is mega cute - and the entire night was just very professional. The band arrived on stage on time, which included a mini-brass section, an enormous drum kit, several bass players, a guitarist, a DJ and four backing singers (this is the Academy 2 by the way - tiny), before Janelle made her entrance in a hood channelling the monsters from The Village. A fabulously professional and atmospheric video preceded her performance; if she can make a quality video, then Girls Aloud fucking can.

Points we picked up on during the gig;

• The set list followed the structure of The ArchAndroid quite closely, further enhancing the conceptual theme of the storyline and plot. However, “Cold War” and “Tightrope” closed the gig, despite being at the start of the album – this was for the benefit of the gig, as those two are classified officially as ‘awesome’ and were made to close gigs. Also, the songs flowed into one another, reminiscent of another fantastic gig we saw this year (begins with K- and ends with -elis), giving her hardly any time to catch a breather.
  

• The band were tight – both in the sense that they were incredible musicians (you knew Monáe had more than a hand in selecting them) and that they were on form for the ‘performance’ side of the gig. Choreographed routines were happily picked up by the brass players, and the drummer was as much a part of the visual side as the backing dancers/singers.

• The Metropolis (as in the 1927 film) influences really did show themselves explicitly throughout the course of the gig. Aside from Cindi Mayweather or whatever her alter ego is called being a total rip-off (don’t mean that derogatively) of Maria, clips from the film played during a couple of songs on the projector, and during “Come Alive” (the encore) she jumped onto the drummer’s podium and screamed/shouted/made dramatic poses and facial expressions as her entire band gathered around her in awe – total homage to Evil Maria rallying her worker troops.

We took a photo of the setlist (some lucky bitch who wasn’t us happened to win it) to save our dainty fingers typing it all out. Moral of the story is… if Janelle Monáe happens to tour in a city near you, go and fucking see her.

(PS sozzles about the shite photos, we were half way to the venue before we realised we didn't have Madame Camera so we had to make do with shite iPhone photos)