I spent the better part of yesterday getting my eardrums ravaged at Shoreline Amphitheatre for this year's Rock the Bells festival. Note to self: Next time, wear earplugs.
If'n you haven't the vaguest idea what I'm rambling about, Rock the Bells is a touring hip-hop festival. There's generally an epic headliner, usually a reunited group (Wu-Tang one year, Rage Against the Machine last year, the Pharcyde this year). This was my second year at RTBs and unlike last year when I was relegated to the Paid Dues Stage (which was not a bad thing, I just had to eschew heavy hitters like the Roots—interesting that was not the first but the second time I've missed out on seeing the Roots at a festival I was already at, I believe I'm destined never to see them in concert), I actually got to see the main acts.
I'd have to say it was a hip-hop good time (and it better damn well be for $100 a pop). De La Soul was my favorite act of the day, followed closely by Method Man and Redman—who gave one of the liveliest performances—and the Pharcyde behind them. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed headliners A Tribe Called Quest, especially Q-Tips little opening performance which included all the tracks worth listening to off of Amplified. It's just by the time they took the stage, I was pretty wiped—and I wasn't the only one, there were two dudes who straight up slept during most of their set. Also, most of the songs sounded unfamiliar to me, which is not a surprise given that the only ATCQ album I own is Anthology and when I went back to listen to it today, I realized that the songs they played from Anthology were pumped up for a live performance.
Mos Def gave an ... interesting performance. He performed some of my favorite songs from The New Danger ("Ghetto Rock" and "Sunshine"), but a lot of his set involved him signing along to some random tracks, including a reggae medley and Ray Charles' "Gold Digger." Mos had, by far, the mellowest set, which was a nice break from earlier acts, especially Method Man and Redman, and gave people a chance to chill out before Nas' explosive set. Speaking of Nas, he had the most political set (I missed Immortal Technique's set, but I did catch him saying that the government should fear the people, so I may be wrong). Other than Nas, the acts seemed to try to keep it pretty apolitical, which is both unsurprising (you probably don't want to piss off your corporate sponsors) and surprising, it is hip-hop after all.
Altogether, it was one epic day. Pictures forthcoming.
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