By Chris DeMento
Tuesday night, Dec. 11, and I was feeling really zoned in: got the good word that the RZA and his stagemate Monk were just getting to town after a long drive up the coast, and that meant I didn't need to stress about getting
down there all that early. I happened to be on their clock.
The openers - Audible Mainframe, Mr. Sayre, and Benflowz - held it down as a packed-full Independent waited for its headliner. Didn't seem like all that much time to me, although more than one audience member expressed disrelish while waiting for a such a "prima donna." Feeling really zoned in, completely ignorant of time, I reminded more than one audience member it was the RZA about to come on, be patient, dudes. Have youse a Heinekin.
Whatever route the RZA and Monk took from LA to SF had inspired them. First thing they did was soak the crowd in bubbly. Later they fed it Black Label and Grey Goose. Having officially dropped the Wu's brand-new album that very same day, 8 Diagrams, Bobby Digital was in quite good spirits, lolling around the stage with a smile, stumbling upon a set of hand drums to beat on, feeling zoned in: "I'm feeling really zoned in," he said.
More impressive than his gamesmanship was his prescience. This was an extraordinarily shapely, jammy show that demonstrated an unmistakable awareness of the way San Franciscans will be enjoying their hip hop: with a headnod and a zoned-in stare.
"So go ahead and zone out": RZA nearly flaunted, knowing exactly, superciliously, for whom he was playing. His blues-funk ensemble kept it understated, West Coast cool, almost a lounge act. There was a 10-minute instrumental interlude during which both the audience and performers seemed to be doing nothing more than relaxing - a collective headnod, a nubilous, zoned-out stare indeed. (I can't remember what he played, only how.)
And after whipping the crowd into a frenzy at last by offering to take two requests, he smartly exited the stage. I mean, he just left. End of show, no two requests, no nothing except the old Veteran's Stadium organ playing its recessional as the Independent dumped out onto Divisadero. Good shit. The old-new hip-hop thing: you get what you give.
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Comments (1)
Wu-Tang in SF on 12/27 at Ruby Skye. Dope: http://www.wutangsf.com
R
Posted by jason samons | December 18, 2007 12:19 AM