Jason Derulo

On the Waterfront presents Jason Derulo

OTW has been around for over 20 years and is one of the bright spots in the hard hit by economy city of Rockford. Today, the On the Waterfront Festival is Illinois’ largest street festival with over 80 performers in five music venues covering 26 city blocks in the heart of the River District. With its family and kid friendly atmosphere, tonight OTW brought to the stage one of the biggest acts in R&B/Pop music; Jason Derulo.

As the last days of summer approached, tonight was a reminder of how hot the summer is with temperatures in the 90’s and high humidity. This did not stop the hoards of tweens that came out to pack the main stage to see Derulo perform. Before Derulo came on there was a local DJ to get the crowd into it as he teased the crowd asking are they ready to see Jason. With an empty stage for Derulo to perform was strange to see after the night before featured 7 national rock bands on stage filling it up.

With the fog machine blasting the lights dimmed as the opening notes to Whatcha Say started, needless to say the 1000+ screaming girls started and did not let up till Derulo ended his show. As his two backup dancers came on first before Derulo showed, doing the slide as he moved to the front of the stage. Right away you can see what a true showman Derulo is as he played with the crowd and he commanded the whole stage, moving from one end to the other leaving the screaming tweens in his wake. For the song Ridin’ Solo he sung acoustically with a lone guitar player on stage with him, was a great rendition and showcased his vocal skills on the mic. Other songs included Encore, an amazing performance of In My Head which had Derulo doing some tutting with his dancers and showing how good of a dancer he is, and It Girl off the soon to be released album Future History. Derulo ended the night with one of his latest singles’ Don’t Wanna Go Home and the CD version of Ridin’ Solo.

While his set was not as long as many of his fans would have liked, he gave them his all and left them smiling on their way home.

A special thank goes out to Angela Link who helped with organizing everything I needed and the hard work she puts in to make On the Waterfront an amazing showcase for what Rockford has to offer.

All Photos Provided by Peter Lizano