i was at both shows, thought i'd add a bit...
dominic said:
just got back from east river amphitheater
kano's set was by far the most impressive -- he really laid it on the line, totally went for it -- it was kano and some other guy, and they had their own dj -- they rapped non-stop, in that high cockney accent, clipped staccato delivery -- w/ hardcore grime stuff for the soundtrack, one track into the next --
kano was very solid, his hype man was really good, anyone know his name? he def. played his harder stuff, no r&b... trying to win the crowd over with rapping skills and energy... he did good...
wiley was indeed on hand -- he did about four songs with three other guys from roll deep -- i liked it, found it very rhythmically disorienting, dug the interplay among the four rappers -- my uk friend simply thought they were fucking up -- so whether it was intentionally arhythmical and disorienting, or whether they were out of time, who knows -- i'm not always the most reliable judge! -- but i was really enjoying roll deep -- BUT THEY LOST MAJOR POINTS in my book when it started to rain
they were only supposed to do a few songs and before it started to rain, they announced this was their last song (and then did a 10 minute medley), so i can't complain... honestly, they were tighter and more focused at the outdoor show... it seemed like at the knitting factory show, they were a little, um, "jet lagged", and by the end, wiley was slurring a little , wheras at the outdoor show, he was sharper... honestly, i thought they were great and it was a bonus that they jumped up and did a little set... (and one that was different from their knitting factory one...)
as for juelz santana -- no comment! -- yeah, he's got the one big hit, which i've heard a million times and do in fact rate -- but i'm simply not down with the hip hop hero thing, the grand entrance, the fan adulation, etc -- really, as far as hip hop pop stars go, give me nelly any day of the week (figured i take a chance to fly my st louis colors)
or as mc chosan called him: joo-elllls (it's "jools" like holland..)... he's gotten much better over the last year or two, but i'm not a big fan either. but, it was a genius move to book him, as Dipset rules NYC, as simple as that... the hip hop hero thing wasn't manufactured in this case, people love the dude... when he got off stage, the entire audience ran around the back of the ampitheatre to try to meet him...
even more problems = i think greg poole and dinesh deserve credit for bringing over all this uk talent to the states, but they need to step back and let the real stars shine -- in this case, dj cameo was not given much chance at all to spin records -- and facts are facts, and the relevant fact is that dj cameo is a far superior dj than greg and dinesh -- and cameo also has a certain charisma -- so really, cameo should have been playing the records -- he's the guy you want pitching grime to the kids from the LES projects!!!!
yeah, and you could see Cameo was NOT happy about it either... it was run kind of poorly, there was too much time inbetween acts and, yes, dinesh and greg playing old garage tracks is not the same as DJ Cameo playing Lethal B dubplates... i don't blame greg and dinesh for wanting to play at an event they put alot of work into, but yes, it would have been better had they not spun as much(and perhaps booked a better hip hop DJ to have the event be more of a balanced hip hop/grime split..)
now the move to have juelz santana perform was smart -- b/c that brought out people from the LES projects -- but they should have had juelz perform last, b/c by the time kano took the stage there was hardly anybody there --
yes, that really surprised me!!!! you're going to have some guy who's basically unknown in new york (kano) headline over the 2nd biggest member of Dipset, the group who's mixtapes sell in every single corner store in NYC????? bad move, and basic promoting: never put an out of town act headlining over a big local one...
and then the sound engineers were utterly incompetent -- if this is a soundsystem, the music should be loud!!! -- instead, the volume kept going up and down for no apparent reason, and the system cut out entirely a couple times -- most unfortunately when dj cameo said "this is how we rock it london!" and then cuts in the record, and guess what? = no sound!!! -- it was such a bad moment that i almost cried -- i was feeling dj cameo's pain!
yeah, that was really really funny... the amphitheatre sound always sucks... a few years ago when Kool Herc played there, he was FURIOUS at the sound guy b/c the sound was so quiet... he was bitching him out over the mic and saying "my music is meant to be played loud" and "next time, i'll bring my own system!"
as for the knitting factory roll deep show, they were fucking great. Wiley does indeed look kinda like RZA and does the similar "stage manager thing", i.e. making sure everything is going well.. he kept looking at the crowd, seeing if they were "getting it", i guess... the crowd def. felt Flo Dan the most, as when he'd really get going, the energy level went waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up. tho i swear he used his lines from "Big Mic Man" at least 6 times, and wiley said "i'm wiley, i'm grimey" quite a few times as well. i guess this gig really showed me the garage roots of grime, where the lyrics of the MC aren't as important as keeping the energy going on the dancefloor... it seems like Roll Deep has a bunch of routines and they kinda work off them and you'd hear verses sometimes twice in the night ("pies", "when i'm here" , "wot u call it"), just over different beats... oh and they did that new Wiley song about himself about both gigs... pretty catchy ("it's wiley!")...
interesting... also intersting to see Karnage DJ, using just blends, no cuts...
my favorite moments were probably seeing Wiley and Trim rap over "eskimo" (nice dancehall style drop out mixing by Karnage on that one... think he was using the faders, not the transformer) on friday and seeing Wiley and Flo Dan rap over "Ice Rink" on saturday, which then got mixed into Eskimo, if i remember right...
oh and for their last song on Friday, they rapped over "Golly Gosh", which i totally didn't expect... very cool...