Toni Braxton is a diva with 'tude. She was a bit much at the recent Louisville, Kentucky Midwest Music Festival on Saturday, June 7th. More on her in a bit.

The first night, June 6th had Charlie Wilson, Chaka Khan, Ginuwine and Lyfe Jennings (who last time I saw him made some homophobiac remarks on stage, wonder if he didn't like all of his prison time).

Ginuwine did Michael Jackson impressions to "Billie Jean', "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" and also did a bit of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On". He got more house from those than he did off his own songs like "In Those Jeans" and "Pony".

Chaka was in good voice and lookes quite well with her weight loss. Too many times she let background singers take the really high notes and turned the mic to the audience to sing the lines of tunes like "Sweet Thing" and "I'm Every Woman". Her best moment may have been on her last hit "Angel".

Charlie Wilson put on a show to be double damend. hands down the best r&b show I have seen in many a years. He did all of his solo hits as well as the classics by The Gap Band.

Back to night 2, all in all a much better night and a bigger crowd in the KFC! Yum Arena.

Headliner was Toni Braxton, big mistake on the part of the promoters. The rest of the bill was Babyface, Anthony Hamilton, Avant w/ KeKe Wyatt, Zay Foggs and Mali Music.

The opening acts were very good, especially that newcomewr Foggs, he had the ladies screaming and got good audience response. I downloaded two of his songs he performed that night, "U Said" and "You're A Superstar". I heard he had and Babyface went to the same high school in their hometown of Indianapolis, which is also the hometown of KeKe Wyatt, and that girl can sing. She and Avant tore it up with "My First Love". After them came Anthony Hamilton, and whew, he can sang and put on a soulful show. He did a gospel thing that turned that big arena into a footstomping Baptist church. He came back for an encoreof "Charlene" amd just slayed the place.

Next up was Babyface. He did "For The Cool In You" and a gur wrenching version of "Never Keeping Secrets" compleete with a double time gospel ending that had him shout dancing across the stage. His medley of tunes that he has writte, co-written or produced on acts was the killer moment of the show as he went from Midnight Star's "Slow Jam" to "Rock Steady" by The Whispers to "Two Occasions" by The Deele" to Bobby Brown smashes like "Every Little Step", "Rock Witcha" and "Roni", Johnny Gill's "My, My, My", After 7's "Ready Or Not", and Boyz II Men's "End Of The Road", He closed his set with his own "Whip Appeal". Close tie between Babyface and Anthony Hamilton as to who owned the night.

THen next came the diva drama. Word was that each act was performing for one hour afer the Avant set, but Toni Braxton's set change after Babyface took a long time, and several people left. I heard she was supposed to go on at 11:30PM, instead she came on at 12 Midnight. Her show seemed canned, like it was a Las Vegas run at the Sands Hotel or something. She was not a good closing act. She had too many bring people on stage for anniversaries, birthdays and couple dancing moments. Near the end of her set, she asked for for audience requests and several people yelled for tunes ehe did with Babyface on the recent LOVE, MARRIAGE & DIVORCE duest album by the two of them, but Braxton told the crowd that, "That sukka left early so we can't do those". She asked if there was a guy in the audience that could sing like Babyface because she wanted to do her first hit "Give U My Heart". She brought a dude up on stage to sing the 'Face parts, but she told him he really didn't sound like Babyface, then appearing stage left came a white suit clad Babyface singing the song. They did "Rollercoaster" and "Hurt U" from the duets album and then Babyface left after Toni coaxed him to 2 step slow dance with her ala DANCING WITH THE STARS style and then she did "Unbreak My Heart" as by now half of the audience was gone and as people were walking out she was pleading with them to stay, don't leave.

Toni Braxton should never be a headliner on a festival show like this. Her set was 78 minutes, show was over around 1:20AM.

Babyface and Anthony Hamilton made the night worthwhile. They could have left Toni with BRAXTON FAMILY VALUES.