Blog banner by Laura "Neila" Yang. http://www.iloveyeti.com
Once Evil Ebenezer got up to play, the crowd had dwindled to a much smaller pool of hip hop heads. But like the DJ Abilities and Sadistik show the night before, the fans remaining made up for the lack of a large audience with their genuine enthusiasm and appreciation for the music. I reclaimed my rightful place in the front row before Evil kicked off his first tune, and was pleased with the immediate positive reactions of the crowd, which felt a lot more genuine than the half-hearted applause that the Sacramento openers got. This was my first time seeing Evil play live, and he breezed through a good selection of songs from his "Call Me Evil," "Birds," and "Evil Eye" albums that emphasized his cool rap voice and penchant for poppy hooks and songwriting. There have been points in Evil's recent recordings where his sound has gotten a little too poppy for my tastes, but it seems like he avoided playing any of those tunes in favor of highlights from his various albums. Some stand-outs included "Take Me With You," "Scarecrow, "Wonder Years" and "Liquor Store," which somehow managed to work despite the sobriety of the venue. "Wake Up" was also an excellent mellow way to end the set, and Evil got a good deal of call and response from the crowd for most of his songs that had him in a good mood the entire time. He encouraged people to come visit him at the merch booth after the show even if they didn't want to buy anything just to say what's up. Nice set.
to me, as it was awesome to see him and AED translate the sounds of Sapient's new album to a live setting. I wasn't sure if Sapient would be as convincing a singer live as he was on record, but he managed it just fine at Sol Collective. This was only the second or third night of Sapient and AED road-testing the new "Slump" material and there were a few hiccups here and there in the syncopation of the music, but for the most part the songs were played flawlessly and had their own original sound live. "When" and "Monsters Eat Bricks" were stand-outs to me, but "Ello" was definitely a crowd favorite and got a lot of love from folks. After covering about 8 or 9 songs from "Slump," Sapient dropped the instruments, picked the mic up off the stand, and ran through some of his older rap numbers for the hungry fans. He played mostly songs from "Gunwings" and "Barrels for
Feathers" and did them justice, though he took it back further to "My Grind is Tech" and "Letterhead" for the encores. Sapient's rapping sounds good live and he gets pretty animated on stage, but the third part of the show was probably the weakest of the three. I really liked the format of the set overall, though, and think that Sapient should stick to incorporating all three of these elements in order to cover the bases and give the crowd a sense of his diversity. If I weren't familiar with Sapient's recordings, I definitely would have looked into them after watching his set. Very interesting and creative performance that lived up to expectations.
responsive to the crowd. He played his set mostly off stage and a few feet into the crowd to get closer to the shy spectators, only reclaiming the stage in order to work in a bit of scratching here and there. Stand-out songs included "Rise" and the very somber "Marionette," which set the tone for Sadistik's set well. Maulskull was also kind enough to give away hard copies of "Us & Them" to everyone in the crowd, and like Black Mask's album, these freebies were packaged beautifully in glossy digipacks with solid artwork and some impressive guest features. A guaranteed way to get me listening and paying attention to your album. Good performance.
the small crowd, including one memorable moment where he referenced the serial killer in "Silence of the Lambs" by applying a bunch of chap stick to his lips and asking the crowd "do you love me now?" He also performed a freestyle that incorporated a couple of topics chosen by the crowd, which was a fun segment of his set, though he was not quite reaching Astronautalis levels of amazing when it came to that game. His songs "Kill the King" and "Ashes to Ashley" got some very strong and favorable reactions from those in attendance, though it was a little strange to see him perform "Micheal" live, as that track almost feels too personal for a live setting to me. Never the less, the entire set was enjoyable and went appreciated by everyone in the circle of fans. A strong performance for sure.
negative thing I have to say about DJ Abilities is that in my limited experiences chatting him after shows, he's always struck as having a bit of an ego... After this event, he was going on about how no one is crafting DJ mixes like he is and how it's easy to fill most venues with his name on the bill. I enjoyed his set, but frankly his routine was not that far removed from the DJ mix sets that friends of mine spin in Oakland on a regular basis. Still, it was a good show.
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.