View From the Front Row, 2/19/13
I made a little visit out to New York last week and had the opportunity to see Louis Logic's first headlining show in 7 some odd years at the Union Pool in Brooklyn. Featured in the line-up were the talents of Ceschi Ramos, Jonny October, Troy Walsh and J-Zone holding things down on the wheels of steel.
The show was scheduled to start at 8:00 PM, so my homie Misha and I decided to schedule our metro ride to arrive down there in the 9:00 PM-ish range, under the assumption that hip hop shows always start at least an hour late. By some strange twist of fate, Louis Logic managed to get things running exactly on time, which could very well be a first in my hip hop show-going experiences. Unfortunately, we missed Troy Walsh's set due to our late arrival, and Jonny October was just about wrapping up his performance as we made our way through the crowd. We did get a chance to see a special guest appearance from rapper Pack FM, who rocked a song or two as an interlude during Jonny October's set and got some pretty good crowd response going. The few songs I heard from Jonny October sounded pretty good, and he seemed enthusiastic to be on stage opening for some underground heavy-weights.
As for the stuff I was in attendance for, I have to send a special nod of appreciation to J-Zone for his excellent DJ skills and selections between sets. J-Zone spun exclusively 45s throughout the evening, and laid down some deep funk jams that had folks bobbing their heads and getting loose. J-Zone's choice selections were obscure and funky as hell, and his interludes between sets were a major step up from your average DJ fare.
Ceschi was the first of the acts I had the chance to watch from the front row at this gig, and he put on an amazing show that remains second to none in the world of hip hop and beyond. He kicked things off with one of his signature acoustic rap songs and then grabbed the mic and went straight into "Count On It" to get the crowd riled up. Ceschi is one of the more impressive acts to see live in my opinion because of the diversity of his songs and the command that he has over the crowd, regardless of what style of music he's playing. He put on a stellar show, barreling through tracks like "Fall of Captain E.O" and "Bad Jokes" flawlessly without skipping a beat, with fans like myself shouting along to many of the lyrics. Some highlights of his performance included an excellent rendition of "Black and White and Red All Over," an awesome performance of "Love Song for the Apocalypse" and a crazy finale of "Half Mast," which was performed from the center of the crowd amidst much sweating and moshing. Louis Logic backed Ceschi up throughout a good portion of his set, occasionally providing back-up vocals and playing keyboards for the tunes, plus always emphasizing how much he loved the man's music. One of the most memorable moments of the show was when Ceschi abandoned his mic and sat up by the bar to perform "The Way We Grow Back Tails" on his guitar, silencing the crowd to a whisper until the hook brought everyone together in song. A truly great performance that turned a lot of heads and caused a lot of jaws to drop. I don't think I've ever seen this guy play a set where he hasn't at least partially lost his voice by the end of it all, and I'm always appreciative of how much he puts into his craft and his stage show.
Louis Logic took the stage shortly after another J-Zone interlude, once again timing things exactly in accordance to the evening's schedule. I'd only seen Louis Logic play live once prior to this concert, and it was about a decade ago in Virginia when he was touring with JJ Brown and promoting his "Sin-a-Matic" and Odd Couple albums. I remember being pretty underwhelmed with his set at that show, partially because of Glue's show-stealing opening performance and partially because of some of his attitude and humor rubbing me the wrong way. I actually ended up walking out of that show before he had finished, but his music has undergone quite a transformation since then and I was damn curious to see if he'd deliver this time. When Lou kicked things off with "Up to No Good" and demonstrated how hungry and animated he was on stage, any fears I may have had quickly fell to the wayside. He performed a very interesting and entertaining set that combined some of his older classics and songs from "Misery Loves Company" with his newer unreleased material, which will apparently be dropping on his upcoming album which if memory serves is tentatively titled "Always Look on the Bright Side." Lou's old and new songs both worked very well for the most part, and offered very different sides of his music while maintaining his penchant for clever concepts and humor. Out of the older numbers, "Factotum" and "Rule By a Fool" worked super well on stage, and he performed a quality rendition of "The Ugly Truth" on his keyboard despite gripes about promising his fiancee he wouldn't play it
that. Speaking of Louis Logic's significant other, she was in attendance and got on stage to play some instruments for Lou's newer songs, which seemed slightly less grounded in traditional hip hop and featured a lot more singing and live keyboard playing. I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of all of the singing in the new approach, but the songs themselves were very good and featured a lot of clever concepts, including a track dissing reality TV shows, a track advocating gay rights, and a song reflecting upon his past touring debauchery in a negative light. The many enthusiastic fans in attendance demanded an encore, and Lou hopped into the crowd to throw down his verse from "Diablo." Strong set that showed off Louis Logic's personality well, my faith in his live show has been restored.
The vibe of the NY crowd at this thing was great, and definitely benefited from my friends Corina Corina and PremRock being there. Even got to meet Willie Green before the night was out. Good times!
