Wyvern Posted August 4, 2003 Report Posted August 4, 2003 Recently, I was visiting one of my friends in Stanford, California and we went to see a concert of two of my favorite hip hop artists out in nearby Campbell (a little area that very rarely gets mentioned on maps, but is next to San Jose). Anyway, it turned out to be an interesting performance that evening, so I thought I'd share a few details... The concert took place at a tiny little nook called the Gaslighter Theatre, which is rarely known for hip hop... or music in general, for that matter. The theatre can probably hold around 200 people at max, and the stage and seating arrangements ressemble those used by stand-up comedians rather than music performers. The charge was 8 dollars, and the line-up consisted of some opening act whose name I forgot, One Man Army (not the punk band, but rather a respected M.C), and Illogic & Blueprint (who rank 3rd and 7th on my list of top ten M.Cs respectively). The opening act, whose name I've forgotten for a reason, was pretty dull. The set was short and he had people playing keyboards and drums for him, but apart from a rapidfire verse he did at the end there was nothing really interesting about his performance. He tossed out lots of free stuff into the audience and I caught a T-shirt, but it turns out the only reason he was doing it was because he was low on cash and was promoting the car brand "Scion"... I plan to paint a large "SUCKS" underneath the Scion logo on that free shirt as soon as I find the time... but I digress... ;p One Man Army was a much better act. The "crowd," which must have been about 50 people at most, was small enough so that he could get real personal with the audience and talk to people individually. He's a good rapper and a nice guy, though not interesting enough to really amaze me... After he was finished, Illogic and Blueprint finally took the stage... and here's where things got pretty interesting. Before starting their set, they noted that their microphones and DJing equipment were not working well thanks to the guy in charge of sound check (who was obviously a rookie). They bickered with the equipment for around 10 minutes and then started their set, only to have their microphones literally fall apart in the middle of a song. So finally, they decided that they needed to take a different approach. And that's exactly what they did... they abandoned their microphones and DJing equipment entirely and instead decided to do their songs in the form of spoken word, as if it were a poetry reading. Now... normally, when a music artist doesn't have any music to back him up, he falls flat on his face. That certainly wasn't the case for Illogic or Blueprint. They delivered their words with real emotion, and their writing is seriously nothing short of poetry. Topics ranged from punchlines that had the entire audience cracking up to a take on the war on terrorism from the perspective of a 10 year old Iraqi child that had the audience extremely silent and contemplative. People who appreciated my "Poetic Justice" compilation would have undoubtedly enjoyed their spoken word performances. Overall, it was worth my 8 bucks. I chatted a bit with Illogic after the show, and picked up one of his rare, tour-only "Write to Death" CDs (112 out of 200, w00t). I left with the impression that these rappers are truly poets, though I pretty much knew that before I even saw them in concert. ;p So... has anyone else been to any "interesting" concerts? P..S: If anyone wants to learn more about Illogic or Blueprint, you can visit www.weightless.net for some info.
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