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end of another semester
May. 5th, 2013 02:19 amWow, huh. That would be the end of my tenth school year at a university. I need to get this finished, yeah?
On Wednesday night, my phone (via Google Now!) alerted me that Ghostface Killah had a show on Thursday night! And I wasn't about to miss Ghostface Killah coming to Bloomington, and Lindsey wanted to go, so we went!
His new project is this wild concept album, working with Adrian Younge, and their show was this borderline rock-opera, complete with a fantastic soul band, costumes, costume changes, audience participation, and the plot of the album. And the band was amazing, holy cow.
There was this weird tension, though -- I think most of the people at the show were over-excited 21-year-olds who were thinking "holy crap, I'm at a Wu-Tang Clan show!"... they wouldn't stop yelling "Wu! Tang!" and didn't seem all that into the actual show, but were more into the idea of being at the show. It must have been frustrating for the band and Adrian Younge...
On the other hand, they did take a few breaks in the plot to do some Wu-Tang classics. Maybe the most amazing part of the show: when they did Protect Ya Neck, they brought some local kids up on stage to do ODB's verse. With the explicit instructions to the audience: if the first kid doesn't do a good job with the verse, he's getting booed off stage. And the first kid wasn't loud enough, or didn't come in at the right time or something, and sure enough, he got booed off stage. Ouch!
The second kid, though. He nailed it. A lanky young black guy in a sea of white faces, and he hit it just right! There he was, rapping onstage with Ghostface Killah, and he nailed ODB's verse, and everybody in the audience went bananas (moreso than before, even). At the end of the song, he hugged Ghostface (who was like twice his size; he's a tank), faced the audience like absolutely resplendent, beaming. And he crowdsurfs off the stage, back to his spot in the audience.
After the show, we came back home and I finished up my grading for the semester.
And! Friday and Saturday, we hung out with Dr. Andy Keep, PhD and his family to celebrate Andy's graduation! He didn't walk and get hooded until yesterday, but he's spent most of the Spring already done and working at his postdoc. And the whole situation was lovely; his family is great.
On Wednesday night, my phone (via Google Now!) alerted me that Ghostface Killah had a show on Thursday night! And I wasn't about to miss Ghostface Killah coming to Bloomington, and Lindsey wanted to go, so we went!
His new project is this wild concept album, working with Adrian Younge, and their show was this borderline rock-opera, complete with a fantastic soul band, costumes, costume changes, audience participation, and the plot of the album. And the band was amazing, holy cow.
There was this weird tension, though -- I think most of the people at the show were over-excited 21-year-olds who were thinking "holy crap, I'm at a Wu-Tang Clan show!"... they wouldn't stop yelling "Wu! Tang!" and didn't seem all that into the actual show, but were more into the idea of being at the show. It must have been frustrating for the band and Adrian Younge...
On the other hand, they did take a few breaks in the plot to do some Wu-Tang classics. Maybe the most amazing part of the show: when they did Protect Ya Neck, they brought some local kids up on stage to do ODB's verse. With the explicit instructions to the audience: if the first kid doesn't do a good job with the verse, he's getting booed off stage. And the first kid wasn't loud enough, or didn't come in at the right time or something, and sure enough, he got booed off stage. Ouch!
The second kid, though. He nailed it. A lanky young black guy in a sea of white faces, and he hit it just right! There he was, rapping onstage with Ghostface Killah, and he nailed ODB's verse, and everybody in the audience went bananas (moreso than before, even). At the end of the song, he hugged Ghostface (who was like twice his size; he's a tank), faced the audience like absolutely resplendent, beaming. And he crowdsurfs off the stage, back to his spot in the audience.
After the show, we came back home and I finished up my grading for the semester.
And! Friday and Saturday, we hung out with Dr. Andy Keep, PhD and his family to celebrate Andy's graduation! He didn't walk and get hooded until yesterday, but he's spent most of the Spring already done and working at his postdoc. And the whole situation was lovely; his family is great.
