Last weekend I attended two major concert events: Sonic Youth performing Daydream Nation at (in?) Maccarren Pool, supported by The Slits and Rock the Bells featuring 1/2 of hip hop on Randall's Island.

Hmmm, The Slits. I did get chills at the opening of Love und Romance, and Ari-Up did credibly, gleefully tear through a handful of classics, to the joy of myself and a smattering of fans in the audience. You might think someone who shells out nearly 50 bones to attend a live performance of a Sonic Youth album from 1988 would have a degree of knowlege of or interest in punk rock and post punk, maybe even be a fan of the classics, but in many cases you would apparently be wrong. Much of the audience seemed confused by The Slits, though Ari's enthusiasm proved contagious to many; a few took the crowd participation bait and chanted when asked, or even moved around a smidgeon. The old songs sounded great and the new ones sounded...I'm not feeling them that much. In all honesty.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/constintina/957973608/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1248/957973608_b51de12cf3.jpg" width="500" height="353" alt="The Slits 4" /></a>

Good that The Slits got the sun, it workeed, whereas it would be strange to watch Sonic Youth outdoors in daylight. As the sun set I wished we could see stars in Brooklyn--it was all quite picturesque. I felt pangs of meloncholy at the opening notes and murmers of "Teenage Riot", one of my favorite songs ever, still. <lj user="gordonzola"> wrote quite elequently about <a href="http://gordonzola.livejournal.com/346258.html">seeing the Daydream Nation performance in SF, as well as his relationship to SY over the years.</a> He observed:

<i>I go to shows for the same reason I go to demonstrations. There's always the possibility they'll turn into a riot.

That's what makes this show a little odd. </i>

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/constintina/958022280/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1165/958022280_b24fa051c4.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Sonic Youth 2" /></a>

It was true. It sounded fucking great, and it got to me, but it felt more like sweet nostalgia for a rebellious past than any kind of incitement, vague provocation, or even celebration of current deliquints off smashing things elsewheres. As <lj user="gordonzola"> points out, everyone knows exactly what's going to happen at this show. This undermines the cracks of possibility that run through the album, threatening to explode even today. Or that's what I hear, anyway, just not at this show. Of course, this crowd was never up for a riot--they were barely up to nodding their heads--so perhaps this effect was inevitable at a Maccarren pool show, set list be damned.

Maccarren Pool is a great site for a show, everything sounded <i>great</i>. The acoustics were <i>fantastic</i>. A cool breeze washed through the crowd periodically, and the storm that threatened never came to fruition. I realized again how good this music is.

The encore was nice as well. I never got <i>Rather Ripped</i>, despite <lj user="louie_ludwig">'s strong recommendation, and now I will. The new songs sounded consistantly better than any significant chunk of a Sonic Youth record since...<i>Washing Machine</i>? I'm quite intrigued.

Both rain and rioting seemed more on the agenda at Rock the Bells, which isn't a good thing. We almost left early, so merciless was the hours of rain with nowhere to which one could escape, let along dry off. i was shaking and there was mud in my shoes, and I hadn't brought an umbrella as they were supposedly banned.

This all bothers me. I don;t think it's right to charge people $100 for a ticket to an outdoor concert and not have a rain date <i>or</i> anywhere to get out of the rain. The whole thing was kind of rediculous, from the line waiting outside the gates that shifted to a pushing, shoving mass the second doors opened (this is where those metal fences actually <i>help</i>, guys,) to the same scenario in reverse after Rage Against the Machine's set. Not that you can tell from this picture, but fences inhibiting people's ability to exit the grounds were torn down:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/constintina/957247393/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1167/957247393_799f533186.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Fence" /></a>

A little sad that, for most attendees, this is probably the most aggressive act of rebellion that will come out of all the emotion stirred up by the reuinted Rage.

The crowd was overwhelmingly white guys double-fisting $7 bottles of Bud Light, and when I first got there I was taken aback to the point of questioning my decision to come. I guess I was naiive, but WTF had I signed on--and paid such a huge amount of money that I cannot afford--for? A reprise of Limp Bizkit at Woodstock? This will give you an idea of the crowd:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/constintina/957247469/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1233/957247469_32424a13f6.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Sage Francis - Rock the Bells" /></a><small>Sage Francis performing "Makeshift Patriot" on the "Paid Dues' stage.</small>

It was kinda disconcerting being among what I would guess was a more than 95% baseball cap wearing, straight white guy crowd watching almost all black men perform (and there wer no women on stage at all, except for 2 backup singers. The one on the bill--Erykah Badu--didn't show. Luckily there was such a massive amount of weed being smoked and 2nd hand THC being inhaled that people seemed mostly chill. I thank god for all that I inhaled from the constant blunts and one-hitters being sparked all around me, I think it took the edge off and allowed me to focus more on the overwhelming amount of amazing music.

I was not familiar with Blueprint, and his witty word play made me an insant convert:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/constintina/957247495/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1218/957247495_5f87ef1bf3.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="blueprint" /></a>

and that's it for pictures as during every other act it was either raining a lot or I had nothing remotely resembling a clear shot at the stage.

Even though we were always at one of the two stages, we managed to miss both MF DOOOM (on during Public Enemy,) and Rakim (on at not the scheduled time, after we'd made our way across the ground and were debating leaving.) Still, it blows my mind the number of acts I saw:

Mr. Lif
fucking GREAT as always, and in some kinda Jedi getup I wanted to photograph so bad. But alas: rain.

Talib Kweli
better and less raspy than I've seen him before

Mos Def
who basically came out and stalled when Rakim was MIA...honestly, it was pretty underwhelming, like <i>Black on Both Sides</i> never happened.

Felt
I'm still not loving that dude from Atmosphere, especially with that gross 'stache. MNBFBW hoped that Murs would play his song about being an "underground" black hip hop artists who plays to largely white audiences, mais non.

Immortal Technique
Awesome. And he skipped that song about the guy raping his own mom that disturbs me so.

Pharoh Monche
Unfortunately had a lyric about condoms being infected with HIV, which we have no f-ing time for in these xtian right, abstinenance-only dangerous days. (see <a href='http://www.amazon.com/No-Surrender-Writings-Anti-Imperialist-Political/dp/1894925262/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/104-5495355-0765502?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185996703&sr=8-2"> No Surrender</a> by David Gilbert for discussion of AIDS activism in prisons, and dealing with the obstacle that HIV conspiracy theories present to people protecting themselves.

Public Enemy was pretty great, it was nice to see Flava Flav in his original celebrity context. When he thanked the audience for high ratings his VH1 shows have received, many of them booed! This is the only instance of booing that I witnessed, and Flava Flav was otherwise warmly received.

Wu Tang put on an exciting show, Though I could rarely, barely see the stage. They also dropped the N-word (in reference to the audience, no less!) which was <i>not</i> being put to much use otherwise.

I was a bit apprehensive about staking out space as close to the stage as we were for RATM's set, I didn't trust the crowd. Luckily, explosive as the crowd reaction was, good eitiquette was also on display to a <i>much</i> larger degree than I would have anticipated. I have not been in that large and active an audience...maybe ever. And it was okay, it was <i>great</i>. I miss that. As soon as I realized that people were on top of keeping the mosh pits contained, were watching out for one another, and no one was taking advantage of the chaos and unavaoidable close physcal contact to behave in any manner untowards, it was great. i ignored my questions about what these people do after practically <i>weeping</i> along to "Bulls on Parade" and went with it. Man. I love me some RATM.

It is odd and in some senses unfortunate that they are headlining a hip hop tour, though. Psyched as I was to see them.