Live Review: Public Enemy – May 27th 2010, Vancouver BC
June 2nd, 2010 Filed under: Reviews - Live by admin
(Photo – Scott Alexander)
Live Review – Public Enemy
Thursday, May 27th 2010
Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver BC
For those who missed their chance twenty years ago, or were nothing but a bloodshot twinkle in their daddy’s eye, the nearly full original lineup of the legendary Public Enemy were back in full effect to remind and re-educate Vancouver heads about why in their era, P.E. were the hardest, heaviest group around, and were the soundtrack to Ghetto blocks, University Campuses and Drugspots alike.
With BombSquad producer Keith Shocklee opening on the ones and twos with a selection of floor shaking dubstep riddims, the mood was immediately set for some chest rattling righteousness, and while the digitized beats and subsonic bass were impressive (if not all that unfamiliar to Vancouver crowds over-saturated with dubstep), they seemed to merely emphasize that modern electro sounds are in no way superior to the analog thunder of the Bombsquad.
With the iconic P.E. logo as a massive backdrop, Mistah Chuck, Flavor Flav, Shocklee, the Security of the 1st World, and a full band took the stage, launching immediately into a tumultuous rendition of “Fight The Power” that conjured all the intensity of the summer of ’89. Without pause, Flav took center stage to “911 Is a Joke”, with the new double entendre of post 911 politics echoing through the original meaning.
In his role as orator, Chuck D is unequaled in the Hip Hop world, and he gave free reign to his political ranting, first expressing love for Canada and it’s people while at the same time emphasizing our need to address the pressing issues of the environment, and first and foremost our indigenous peoples’ rights. He pointedly referred to the new immigration laws in Arizona as a lead in to “By the Time I Get To Arizona”, and laid into the record industry before “Bring Tha Noize”. Generally the set tended towards classic tracks from “Fear of a Black Planet”, now in it’s twenty year anniversary, and “It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back”, and while some newer tracks from the last ten to twenty years could have been thrown in for good measure, it was clear they were giving the crowd what it knew and wanted, and giving it to them good, with a passion and energy belying their age.
With Chuck and Flav owning the stage and running back and forth like Axl Rose, Shocklee on the decks rocking a rudimentary yet awesomely cutting scratch technique, the band on point with pedal bass, in the pocket drums and the kind of screaming guitar solos P.E. always loved, plus the S1W’s pacing through their militant maneuvers, the entire effect was truly iconic. Like a revival rally for a political movement nearly lost and forgotten, the Public Enemy machine stamped their mark once more on the foreheads of a new generation, who had almost given up on Hip Hop’s possibility of revolutionary social change.
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