Common and Friends: A magnificent, frustrating experience.
Last Saturday I saw a concert that was at once one of the best and most frustrating shows I have ever seen. The lineup of the show, which was entitled “Common and Friends” and was held as a fundraiser for inner city schools, was utterly astounding. Prior to the show, the performers listed were Common, Nas, Ludacris, The Roots, De La Soul, and special guests. After securing my place in the third row prior to the concert, I learned that the “special guests” were in fact MF Doom(!), Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Kanye West, Heavy D, and Queen Latifah. Needless to say, I was dumbfounded.
Thinking back, it is amazing that I saw all those acts on one stage in a two hour time period. But that’s where the frustration comes in; they only played for two hours! While any one of those acts could have easily played for two hours by themselves, each one instead gave basically a several-track sampler just long enough to get you really excited about all the other songs they might do. The Roots and Nas played three songs each! Do you know how hard it is to see arguably two of your five favorite artists of all time take the stage for ten minutes, leaving you wondering when you would ever get a chance to see them again, if ever?
Don’t get me wrong though, the show was awesome. Mind-boggling. Unlike any show I have ever seen or any show that I will ever seen again. But it just had the potential to be so…much…better, even if every artist would have played only one more song each.
Anyways, here is an abbreviated song list of the show so you can get an idea of what it was like:
After Heavy D performed several songs, Common came back out and this time brought out Mos Def and Talib Kwali with him.
At this point, Common gave a little speech about how Kanye West had meant to perform but he was too embarrassed about what had happened at the VMA’s with Taylor Swift and was afraid people were angry at him. Common concluded by saying that Kanye just wanted everyone to do one thing: Get em high (as the beat dropped the crowd went nuts).
Finally, Queen Latifah ended the night with a few songs.
A final thought: the concert was at the Palladium on Hollywood and Sunset, and it certainly felt like an L.A. concert. There was no pushing and little general movement in the crowd, hi-tech video phones were everywhere (it seemed like half the crowd was choosing to record the entire concert to enjoy at a later date, but hey, I guess that’s where the YouTube videos come from), and, in general, the show seemed like something from an MTV special. While this certainly had its advantages, I would personally prefer an old-fashioned, intense, grind of a concert any day of the week.