Saturday, September 1, 2007
Live at the BBQ: A Techie Perspective
Posted by Jason Dunn in "Zune Events" @ 12:00 PM
This article was written by a member of the Zune Thoughts community, Adam Krebs.
It was almost sunset and Cham was about halfway through his set.
"Is One Blood a hip hop song?" He asked rhetorically, referencing the Junior Reid's neo-classic and the several songs that sample it*. "No!" The crowd of hipster twenty and thirtysomethings shouted back, eager to differentiate themselves from the unwashed masses. In here, the majority of today's popular music is scorned in favor of older and/or lesser-known "real" acts. This is commonplace at concerts such as this, where questions are asked in an attempt to weed out the Justin Timberlake/Fergie-listening general populace from the real fans.
Luckily, such classic acts as Brand Nubian, Large Professor (a.k.a. "Large Pro"), Clipse, and a surprise appearance (at least to us non-press members) by the L.O.X., Black Moon, and LL Cool J helped bolster the feeling of a true "golden era" hip hop experience. Joell Ortiz, Masta Ace, Smif-N-Wessun, and Special Ed helped round out a more contemporary affair**. And for the most part, they were all phenomenal. Even the in-between-set music was done well, complete with a slide show of concert pictures enclosed in a skin resembling the Zune software.
LL Cool J was undoubtedly the most energetic of the night. I haven't been to many big concerts (mostly smaller club settings), but LL's antics are legendary, and I was happy to say that he didn't disappoint. I'm not going to go into too many details (there are legit music blogs with far better writers than I for that), but suffice it to say that it was very cool. The screen to the right of the stage often synced the music video of the song he was performing to the lyrics he was currently spitting. It was well done, and a lot of fun. It's true what they say: Ladies Love Cool James.
It was almost sunset and Cham was about halfway through his set.
"Is One Blood a hip hop song?" He asked rhetorically, referencing the Junior Reid's neo-classic and the several songs that sample it*. "No!" The crowd of hipster twenty and thirtysomethings shouted back, eager to differentiate themselves from the unwashed masses. In here, the majority of today's popular music is scorned in favor of older and/or lesser-known "real" acts. This is commonplace at concerts such as this, where questions are asked in an attempt to weed out the Justin Timberlake/Fergie-listening general populace from the real fans.
Luckily, such classic acts as Brand Nubian, Large Professor (a.k.a. "Large Pro"), Clipse, and a surprise appearance (at least to us non-press members) by the L.O.X., Black Moon, and LL Cool J helped bolster the feeling of a true "golden era" hip hop experience. Joell Ortiz, Masta Ace, Smif-N-Wessun, and Special Ed helped round out a more contemporary affair**. And for the most part, they were all phenomenal. Even the in-between-set music was done well, complete with a slide show of concert pictures enclosed in a skin resembling the Zune software.
LL Cool J was undoubtedly the most energetic of the night. I haven't been to many big concerts (mostly smaller club settings), but LL's antics are legendary, and I was happy to say that he didn't disappoint. I'm not going to go into too many details (there are legit music blogs with far better writers than I for that), but suffice it to say that it was very cool. The screen to the right of the stage often synced the music video of the song he was performing to the lyrics he was currently spitting. It was well done, and a lot of fun. It's true what they say: Ladies Love Cool James.
