I had the pleasure of being one of the 5000+ music lovers/ concert goers to attend the Denver Leg of the ROCK THE BELLS Tour yesterday.
Featuring:
Wu-Tang Clan/ Nas/ Talib Kweli/ Pharoahe Monch/ Immortal Technique/ Jedi Mind Tricks/ Cypress Hill hosted by
Supernatural.
AWESOME fest.
Review:
A word about the spectacle that is Red Rocks Amphitheatre. This is THE best concert venue I have EVER been to. One of, if not THE top venue in the world. It is an amphitheatre built in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies between 2 boulders of red clay rock (?). As if the creator meant for it to be that way. The venue is damn near a natural amphitheatre. (
www.redrocksonline.com).
Just the fact that there was a hip hop festival at such a great venue meant it was sure to be something special.
I arrived late coz I had slept in after being out the night before so I missed Jedi Mind. I would have liked to see them but it wasn't as big a loss as missing any of the other acts would have been.
On arrival much revolutionary exclamation & ‘Idon'tgiveaf***’ ‘f***thegovernment’ shouts are heard. Its Immortal Technique about 3/4's through his set. I did manage to catch Obnoxious pre-empted by Tech asking "Where the Ladies at" & all the ladies (of which there were a surprisingly decent ratio of talent) of course screaming their lungs out...In Typical Imm Tech form tech declares: "All of you who screamed GET THE f*** OUT!" & goes into "Obnoxious".
Great energy from the revolutionary as he walked into the crowd of now about 2500 with no security & rocked it from within the crowd declaring "This is what hip hop is supposed to be... Music is supposed to be free, for the people...burn my shit I don't care bootleg it, but don't be a pussy about it & play it in ya mama's basement.. PLAY IT LOUD OUTSIDE for all to hear!".
Our Host SuperNatural took to the stage & announced the arrival of the almighty Pharoahe.
As Pharoahe arrived with his live band with accompanying back up singers the sun emerged from behind a cloud...
Most of the crowd did not seem to be too familiar with Mr Jamerson as he ripped through his singles "f*** You", "Push" and "Desire". Asking if there were any who had got his latest album "Desire" few responded in the affirmative. 30mins later Pharoahe was about ready to wrap up his set but not before bringing te house down in Rock Star fashion with "Simon Says" (micstand throwing & all!!!). As Pharoahe left the stage the sun returned behind the cloud...spiritual maybe?..Ra blessed the Pharoahe.
In the intermission Super Nat KILLED a freestyle where he had people in the front row give him anything in their pockets and he would rhyme about it including: A Brazilian flag, a bag of weed and a drunk white girl's hotel room key!
It is true Super Nat is the "Freestyle King"
Next man to take the stage was BKMC Talib Kweli. Immediately noticeable was the energy he was bringing to the stage. On the heels of his latest album ear drum which had just dropped in the USA the day before Kweli was in high spirits. He performed his hits "Get By", "Definition" and "Move Something" before getting into some material off his latest "Listen" & "Hot Thang" which had the crowd moving pointing out to "you &you & you &you.." His set was not complete without promoting his label Blacksmith & bringing out his artists Strong Arm Steady as well as the mighty Pharoahe for a freestyle on the Guerilla Monsoon Rap beat joined by legendary Sadat X of Brand Nubian. A nice surprise.
The show was moving along very nicely & we now had a great head of steam to take us into the night.
The stage change brought out Cypress Hill complete with Tonga drums and the blunted 15ft "King" blow up doll in tote. All the stoners (of which they were MANY) took this as license to light up. For the entire Cypress Hill set there was the smell of weed in the air. Its like for that 40mins it was all of a sudden legal. I have never been offered so much free weed in my life.
B-Real & Sean Dogg (?) smoked on stage taking "small Chronic breaks" & ripped through their slew of Sticky green hits including "Insane in the Brain", "I want to get high" & "I could just kill a man".
By the end of the set I believe all 4000 of us were high off the crossfire alone.
It hard to say who the headline acts were on this tour but the next man to the stage was certainly a strong candidate. Nasir "Bin Olu Dara" Jones came to the stage to a mad frenzy & ovation by the now 5000+ crowd.
Understand that Nas does not have the most energetic or personal stage show but just the sheer presence of arguablely the greatest rapper alive was enough to have us all standing at attention.
He ripped through many of his hits including "Stillmatic Intro"; "Made you look", "Hip Hop is Dead", "Life's A Bitch" and "One Mic". Addressing his recent criticism over his scheduled Virginia Tech performance he performed the chorus to the controversial "Shoot Em Up" explaining that it wasn't about killing each other but rather standing for what one believes by any means necessary.
It was now 930pm but you could hardly tell most of the crowd had been there since 3pm as the energy levels were very high.
Most of the people I spoke to were there for Wu-Tang. It was a little surprising there is still a damn near religious following of the Clan.
There was literally a Sea of Wu shirts as far as the eye could see.
The Clan did not hit the stage until after 40mins of waiting anxiously. The energy when they did was apocalyptic. Opening with "Wu-Tang Clan Aint Nothing to f*** With" the clan appeared to be ready to shut the place down & bring the mountain down.
"Da Mystery of Chessbixin" "Its Yourz" and "Tearz" all performed with gusto but the logistics of having 8 live mics on stage at tha same time un-did some of the great performance. Its as Steve Harvey said in Kings of Comedy "I don't want 8 rappers on stage barking instructions at me!".
The pivotal member in WU's performances Method Man was absent. There was an unidentified look-a-like on stage but Rza announced "OUr Main man Method Man couldn't be here he's back home he had some shit to take care of.".
As a result Rae & Rza stepped up as the focal points of the performance seemingly more energetic than ever.
Rae lead as the Clan performed "Incarcerated Scarfaces & "Ice Cream".
It was the Gza's birthday so there was a medley of Gza cla**ics perfomed including "4th Chamber"; "Duel of the Iron Mic" & "Liquid Swords".
No Wu-Tang Clan performance is complete without an ODB dedication. Apparently Denver was the last city to see ODB perform live. This time the Rza led as ODB's first son performed "Shimmay Shimmay", "Brooklyn Zoo" & "Got your Money". I was surprised how many young'ns in the crowd knew the word to the former.
The Wu set supposedly ended with "Triumph" (Rae ripped his verse the hardest mostly accapella.
Being that we were on a mountain between huge boulders of rock, 'the Abbot' saw it fit to finish the night off with "Gravel Pit" which received mixed reaction from the Wu-Tang fans present.
A Dream line-up, A Dream Location. A Dream Concert.
Pix:
Wu-Tang Clan:
Cypress Hill:
Talib Kweli:
Pharoahe Monch:
Immortal Technique:
More Pix here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tate8t8/Flix here:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=04B8706DE8C8ED53(Supernat freestyle is bananas!
ENJOY!
