Good Times and Great Music: VH1 VMAs with Friends

I have never actually been into watching TV as a group. Movies, yes, but not TV. But watching the Suits premiere last month as a group was so much fun that I thought watching the VMAs being telecasted on VH1 would also be a blast.

Turns out it was quieter than I expected.

There wasn’t a lot of crowd. So we didn’t have that exuberant spirit of watching in a large, excited group. However, it was nice catching up with friends leisurely and commenting and laughing over all the goings-on on the TV.

The highlights of the VMAs

I watched the show all pumped for Beyonce’s performance, a favorite of mine. However, the show’s highlight (in my opinion) was Britney Spears’ performance. She sang a new-to-me song – Make Me with some unknown rapper- and it was awesome!

Here’s a video of her performance.

And then there was the whole Rihanna-Drake moment, which was fun to watch, but her performances on stage were electrifying. She performed multiple times and was tireless throughout. Here’s a video of her performance.

The lows

It was the VMAs, so there were no lows as such. Of course, some things were over-hyped and didn’t quite meet my expectations.

One of them was Kanye’s supposed five minutes of free speech time, which everyone expected would involve some barbs targeted at Taylor Swift (they have a long and bitter history, which always surfaces at the VMAs).

Unfortunately, he decided to be diplomatic and just gave a generic cliche-ridden speech. It ranged from Kanye West comparing himself to Walt Disney and Steve Jobs. Then he poked some mild fun about the time he grabbed Taylor Swift’s microphone in 2009 and hinted, once again, that Swift knew about the line “that b*tch” in his song, Famous. He then premiered his new music video for Fade.

All things considered, his speech was just about all right. Call me a snob, but I have a thing for proper speech, and this random unrehearsed speech just didn’t cut it for me.

Another downer was Beyonce’s performance. I think it was just me because it looked fabulous, but I haven’t heard the songs from this album, and I didn’t get the gist of what Lemonade was all about. I read later that this was the show’s standout performance, so yeah, I guess it was just me. Probably by the time the performance came, I was too sloshed to pay that much attention 😉 .

Food and drinks

We watched the VMAs at the Xtreme Sports Bar in Indra Nagar. The place was quiet, and the service was good.

Our choice of drink was beer, but we were surprised to learn that they did not serve beer that day. What was that all about? Anyway, we ordered excellent mojitos.

We stayed on the safe side while ordering the food, ordering only what we expected would be good – potato wedges, chicken bruschetta, and spring rolls.

The bruschetta was disappointing, according to the non-vegetarians at the table, but I was a happy camper with the excellent wedges and spring rolls. I also loved their prices. It was 1500/- bucks for two mojitos and a mocktail, two generous helpings of potato wedges, and a plate each of spring rolls and bruschetta.

Play it safe while ordering, don’t expect too much when it comes to decor, and this is a decent place to hang out with friends.

Overall, we enjoyed catching up with each other over the VMA awards.

Did you watch the VMA Awards? What were the best parts for you? The most boring parts?