Style 43

Bristol Academy, 14.11.08.
So the scene was set for one of the biggest hip hop events in my calendar this year. Not only was it the chance to see the GZA/Genius, one of my favourite emcees from back in the day, but he was also going to be doing a Liquid Swords retrospective, which is one of, if not the best, solo Wu-Tang efforts. I first heard about this gig back in July, so that’s four months I’ve had to get myself hyped up and ready for the onslaught of a founding Wu member hitting my hometown.

Having said that, I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to catch the start of the show and the support acts because I’ve seen Skinnyman more times than I can remember and there hasn’t been too much deviation from show to show (As it turns out, I wish I had got down a bit earlier as apparently the other support acts were dope, according to our guys who caught the London show) We bowled up to the venue at about 9pm and caught the last few bars of “I’ll Be Surprised”. The crowd seemed to be lapping it up but then Skinny has always been a people’s favourite and they also knew what was going to follow.

Next up was a support DJ, who belted out some early 90’s bangers from the likes of Meth and EPMD. The set seemed to be doing the trick in getting the crowd worked up for the main event, but as we all know this effect can’t be overstretched and it wasn’t long before chants of “Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang” resonated through the venue, as fans waited for the Genius to hit the stage. Luckily it wasn’t long before we heard a familiar voice ask us if we were ready and sure enough, we were.

As it turns out, we were a tad too ready and the amount of energy GZA brought to the stage, paled in comparison to the energy being thrown up from the crowd. For the first part of the set, he was chucking out his classics like they were going out of fashion. “Liquid Swords” and “Duel of the Iron Mics” kicked off the proceedings and the crowd erupted. In contrast, GZA just paced up and down the stage, doing his thing, with fuck all effort being thrown into the mix. Memories of the Wu-Tang’s electrified early sets from the “36 Chambers” era were pushed to the back of your mind and soon that dreaded anti-climactic feeling set in. There were a few more bursts of the musical genius that earned him his moniker in the first place. Crowd pleasers in the form of “Living in the World Today” and “Cold World” got the place jumping and the cynic’s favourite, “Labels”, kept them pumped, but Genius’ lacklustre-back-and-forth-I-don’t-need-to-try-anymore stage “presence” (if you can call it that…) was pretty uninspiring. Like my man Swago said about the London gig, the crowds go mental at Wu-Tang shows, standard, which is probably how GZA got so goddamn lazy.

The show was brought to a pretty abrupt close because the Carling Whackademy were having their usual Friday night rock shenanigans kicking off at 11pm and for some reason they didn’t want a load of hip hop heads milling about the place, and as GZA had turned up late, his set only pushed an hour. Full props to him for going out with a bang though. That bang came in the form of the Ol’ Dirty classic, “Brooklyn Zoo”. I don’t know whether it’s the fact that they were cousins, but he sounded scarily like ODB and the crowd went BALLISTIC in response.

But then that was that. Suddenly it was all over. Four months of waiting, for what turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments in my hip hop lifetime, since Jeru was jumped by security at the Thekla (who remembers that palaver?). The lesson learnt – next time I head to a Wu-Tang show, I’m going to be keeping my hype levels at a bare minimum.

Review by Fyshh.

London Electric Ballroom, 13.11.08

The Wu Tang have a deserved rep for not showing up, or arriving so wrecked that they can’t really perform, so I went to see GZA feeling a little bit apprehensive. Unfortunately, as is so often the case at hip hop events in this country, the acts supporting the headlining US artist were simply too good. I showed up a bit late (thanks once again TFL, for causing damage to my plans) so I arrived just in time to see Stig and Syntax’s last tune which was pretty good. They were swiftly followed by Skinnyman. The Mud Fam affiliates were impressive and Skinny never disappoints, largely because he always puts the effort in: he did a lot of tunes, stopped ones that the crowd wasn’t feeling, spat loads of acapella stuff… and, crucially, interacted with us. It was tight.

Sadly, GZA wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong: it wasn’t terrible, it just felt like he couldn’t be bothered to put in the effort that 20 quid per ticket deserved. The DJ did nothing, rhymes were slackly delivered (weak, like clock radio speakers…), he hardly moved around the stage (and when he finally did he had to get a chair brought on for him after a couple of minutes so that he could recover from his exertions!) and he barely interacted with the crowd at all. He badly needed a hypeman, so when Raekwon came out halfway through I thought things were about to pick up. Unfortunately not: the two were rarely on stage together and even when they were the only thing they were competing in was how little effort to put in. I was also really confused about lyrics: call me old-fashioned, but I like seeing MCs spit THEIR OWN rhymes, not seeing one guy doing all the verses from a tune regardless of who wrote them. The one exception was when GZA did ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’ as a tribute to ODB. Predictably, the crowd (and myself) went bananas in response to this because it is a classic and Ol Dirty deserves his props.

In fact, the crowd was going mental throughout. It made me think that this is almost certainly how the Wu Tang got to be so lazy when performing live, because if they need to put this little effort in to get such an immense response they really have no incentive to even try. Personally, I enjoyed myself (how could you resist beats like the ones on Liquid Swords?) but I was left very much in mind of Diego Maradonna: a man who was so talented, turned lazy and fat by of over-confidence in his own abilities born out of people loving him a bit too much. The lesson? If you’re going to do a half-hearted show, don’t book a support act who will make you look bad.

Review by Swago.

Photos by Nathan Hicks.

www.myspace.com/gza

http://www.skinnyman.co.uk

Tags: GZA, hip hop, Skinnyman