MP3.com Live: Rock the Bells
Rage Against the Machine, Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, The Roots, Cypress Hill, and many more rap vets bring the ruckus in San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO--In the parking lot where Barry Bonds plies his trade, it seemed appropriate to bear witness to what can best be described as a rap concert on steroids.
Rock the Bells, the ever-growing hip-hop festival that taps into nostalgia for classic hip-hop, attracted 45,000 fans to the McCovey Cove parking lot at AT&T Park for performances by a massive lineup of some of the top artists of the past two decades.
A quick glance at the biggest names on the lineup was enough to leave you breathless: Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, The Roots, Cypress Hill, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, EPMD, Pharoahe Monch, Blackalicious, Doom, Hieroglyphics, The Coup, and Immortal Technique, among others.
That list includes plenty of artists still making vital music, but it largely ignored current ringtone-friendly fare and almost the entirety of the South, which has dominated rap for the past few years.
Festival producer Guerilla Union even made a major crossover play this year with the addition of Rage Against the Machine, the volatile protest rap-rock band that has reunited this year after a seven-year hiatus to play a handful of live shows.
But with the abundance of musical riches came a slew of the inevitable hassles and confusion that come with attending a music festival with 45,000 people in a parking lot. Security personnel and staffers were uninformed, frequently arguing with one another over the event's rules, and a single entrance for which many people required an hour-long wait just to get inside the festival grounds.
That said, there was plenty of good music throughout the 11-hour day. Here's a breakdown of some of the performances, in reverse order of appearance:
Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello/Photo: WireImage
Say what you will about its place at a hip-hop festival, but Rage Against the Machine's inclusion at the top of the bill was an ace move by Guerilla Union. Thousands of fans sported Rage T-shirts, and while there was plenty of buzz for all of the big-name acts, Rage took it to another level.
Although this group has been lumped into many a "reunion rock" story this year with the likes of the Police, Genesis, and Van Halen, this was no nostalgia set, a fact that possibly said more about the current state of politics and society than anything else. Sporting an afro instead of his once-trademark dreadlocks, frontman Zack de la Rocha spit fiery lyrics that felt every bit as urgent and on point as they did in the '90s.
Drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford formed a propulsive rhythm section, but it was guitarist Tom Morello who added the fuel to de la Rocha's fire, pounding out intense riffs that rode the line between funk and punk.
As the set kicked off with "Testify" and "Know Your Enemy," the band's furious takes on the state of affairs before the Bush Administration took office, one could only imagine what a new Rage album would sound like. Older, wiser, and with an alarmingly new batch of fodder to protest, Rage seemed more relevant now than ever.
Wu-Tang Clan/Photo: Jim Welte
There are plenty of rap shows that feature nearly a dozen dudes on stage. But there's only one group in which each and every one of those cats has the potential to rip a mic to pieces with spitfire lyrics and a signature delivery.
As all eight Wu-Tang Clan members--in addition to Cappadonna and several other affiliate emcees--took the stage late Saturday afternoon, the energy at the main stage went from electric to supercharged. One by one, they each emerged to raucous cheers, before group leader RZA stormed into the opening verse of "Wu-Tan Clan Ain't Nothing to F*** Wit," one of the explosive tracks that first put the Wu on the map in 1993.
Between their four albums as a group and a litany of solo albums and side projects, the clan couldn't have covered the entire Wu-Tang catalog if they stayed on stage the rest of the day. As it were, there was a lot to get to, and they did a pretty good job keeping the set moving and making sure the shine was democratic.
That said, Method Man continues to be the star of the show, hands down. They're all superb lyricists, several have made classic solo albums, and even U-God has a strong stage presence, but none of them can work a crowd like Clifford Smith, who wasted no time in doing so literally by jumping into it just a few songs into the set.
The Roots/Photo: Jim Welte
The best live band in hip-hop continued to do its thing Saturday, blasting through a set that featured both its own material and plenty of the medleys that sample from hip-hop's popular past and present.
The Roots' cofounders, rapper Black Thought and drummer ?uestlove, kicked off with "Here I Come" from the band's 2006 album, Game Theory, with the two playing off each other's tempo chances perfectly.
The highlight of the set was "The Next Movement," a soulful, bouncy track from 1999's Things Fall Apart, as well as its rendition of the Cody Chesnutt-less "Seed 2.0," with guitarist Kirk Franklin performing admirably on vocals. Just like the band's set at Lollapalooza earlier this month, we could have done without the re-creation of Mims' "This is Why I'm Hot," however.
Talib Kweli/Photo: Jim Welte
With adjacent set times, the performances from Talib Kweli and Mos Def were surely to include plenty of material from Black Star, the incredible duo that launched their career with a bang in 1998. Kweli kicked it off solo with some of his own tracks as well as those he did with DJ Hi-Tek, such as the rousing "Move Something."
Kweli performed a few tracks off his excellent new album, Ear Drum, including "Listen" and "Hot Thing." Unfortunately, he also brought out the group he's trying to launch as part of his Blacksmith label, Strong Arm Steady. The group is just not very good, as rappers Kron Don and Mitchy Slick made clear during Kweli's set. Hopefully Kweli lets go of this side project in short order.
When Mos Def joined Kweli on stage, it was a reminder of just how good their Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star album is. The duo blasted through hip-hop classics like "REDefinition" and "Respiration," as well soulful gems like "Brown Skin Lady." The energy dipped quite a bit during Mos' solo half of the set, as he has a tendency to ad-lib too much, but it was still great to see of hip-hop's top emcees share a stage once again.
EPMD/Photo: Jim Welte
As made abundantly clear by their T-shirts promoting their forthcoming new album, We Mean Business, Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith are not playing games. Two decades into a career that spans six albums--all of which incorporate the word "business"--EPMD was perhaps the most nostalgic of all of the acts on the bill, as its last album, Out of Business came out in 1999.
But Sermon and Smith quickly proved why EPMD has sustained itself for so long despite their monotone rapping styles: soulful hooks, tight delivery, and hip-hop at its beats-and-rhymes, no-frills essence. The set featured classics like "You Gots to Chill," "Strictly Business," and "Get the Bozack," and plenty of reminders that EPMD was no fad.
Smith, who vowed that there "ain't gonna be no 'Laffy Taffy' up on this stage today," said it best in rhyme on Saturday, halfway through the group's set: "I'm from the Golden Era / an '80s baby / Way before a T.I. / Way before a Shady."
