Atmosphere - The Family Vacation Tour
Metro, Chicago, IL - 08/05/11
Normally, hip hop shows are celebrations of looking uninterested. Having been to a shitload over the past decade or more, I'm used to the three consistent aspects of every underground hip hop show:
- Over 50% of the crowd is either related to or friends with the rappers performing.
- Those not directly connected to the rappers are generally bored or unimpressed with said rappers, and are usually standing back demonstrating their aloof contempt with silence
- Crowd participation is limited to occasional hand raising or finger gun waving, but none of this is consistent and there is no "rhyming along" with the rappers.
Hip hop shows aren't where you go to feel inspired.
Fortunately we didn't go to a fucking hip hop show.
So Friday me and Smooth Lou went and saw the Family Vacation Tour with Atmosphere with Evidence and DJ Babu, Blueprint and Prof at one of my favorite venues in Chicago, Metro. Most of my friends hate it, but for me, it's the quintessential Chicago venue with amazing sound, a historic laundry list of shows I'm pissed I missed, and a wide narrow audience area with a balcony I've seen almost four dozen shows from.
I've seen Atmosphere here before, but then again, I've seen (and would see) Atmosphere everywhere. While I was excited to see Sean and company again (the third time in under a year), I'm turning into a Blueprint stalker fucking fanboy geek.
I'm not afraid to to admit my man-crush on Print is based solely on his musical decisions over the past five years, where his professional restraint and ability to take chances potentially alienated his backpacker fan base by completely changing directions, not once but twice in two years. His "Who" project is the most tasteful use of samples taken from The Who in that hip hop grey area where something sounds awesome in conversation, but once someone actually takes the samples and chops em, they sound cheesy as Fuck. He murdered that EP, and his Adventures In Counter Culture album is a buffet style plate piled high with styles that don't normally follow each other on a rap album.
While I appreciate his supple backside like a hungry puppy drooling outside of a sausage filled butcher shop window, I'm married and the dude can't have me.
Blueprint is one of the few artists I follow that I've noticed gets better and fucking better and fucking better the shorter he gets. His songs went from hip hop to electro to all out anthemic hands in the sky and punch Smooth Lou in the shoulder he's so fucking awesome type shit. Lou is nursing a bruised left shoulder today thanks to Blueprint.
Having had the pleasure of meeting and becoming besties with Blueprint's bass player Bobby Silver and deejay Rare Grooves back at Sound Set in Minnesota, my appreciation for the live Print show has been elevated past casual fan. I'm not only noticing Print demanding more from his audience, his set went from just a handful of songs played in random order last December, to a fucking 25 minute movement that takes the listener from throwing their hands in the air at the stage to tilting their heads back playing air-keytar while screaming at the ceiling this last weekend.
To call Blueprint a performer is an underfuckingstatement, he's an adamant vacuum of attention on stage and those who aren't paying full fucking attention are just annoying the rest of us who are fucking there to feel his voice in our chests. Blueprint is advancing beyond anything I had ever expected of him, and I expected a lot.
Because of my giddy "oh my god we get to hang out for fifteen minutes again!" relationship with Bobby Silver and Rare Grooves, I missed nearly all of Evidence's set. But having seen him at Sound Set and back when I was in grade school (Evidence and Babu are collectively 105 years old) I am certain they handed the packed house their anuses on a platter sprinkled with delicious Roman spices. Evidence is one of the nicest people I've ever met twice and he complimented me on my curves twice, which is more than I can say for Smooth Lou who ignored my tautness. Prick.
Before Atmosphere took the stage, Lou and I wormed our way into the center section of the balcony and eavesdropped on the conversations around us. Listening to people talk about a rapper that I'm a big fan of is fun, but it's different at Atmosphere shows because everyone in the fucking building talks about the dude like they just saw each other at Christmas. No one is shitting on the guy before he takes the stage, no one is hating on his semi-recent inclusion of live instrumentation, and no one is there for anything but the party about to start.
Slug walks onto the stage in front of a packed house differently than any other rapper/band/deejay I've ever seen. He doesn't really look like he's here to "perform" as much as he's just excited to listen to music with all of these screaming people staring at him smiling.
Since seeing him at The Orbit when I was in high school, to seeing him now, they are two completely different people. And over the past fifty years of his career, I think he's mellowed to the point of realizing how much fun what he does can be if he allows it. He doesn't have control over every nuance of the show any longer, as the songs aren't his anymore. He's just the one starting the songs, everyone else knows them better than he does at this point.
I think what the grown up Slug has going for him that the young Slug didn't is that now he isn't concerned about keeping anyone but himself happy, and a happy Slug makes for a happy audience. Each leave fulfilled.
At any random point throughout Atmosphere's set you can find any and all of the following:
- Ant in a world by himself defining the word "sashay" in a button down.
- Nate playing wack-a-mole with his never-ending assortment of guitar pedals and scaring people with his fucking insanely delicious backing vocals, which, I've never realized were so fucking awesome.
- Erick manipulating his finger bones in an almost irritatingly half serene, half writing out his grocery list in his head type calm. His recreation and accompanying of Atmosphere's elderly songs were tasteful and as fucking awesome as I've seen from him.
- Slug sweating his ass off, not drinking enough water, and having one on one rap show relations with every muthafucker in the joint.
I don't write down set lists or comment on what songs were played in what order, because I really don't care. Every show is a show regardless of what songs that I love were forgotten, remembered or remixed live on stage. But what I'm seeing Atmosphere shows as becoming are the exact opposite of what hip hop shows have been for so long, they're a fucking party. The rapper isn't rapping to prove he can rap, he's rapping to show you you can dance. The people in the crowd aren't there to look cool, they're there to see their friends play songs they can rap along to.
Talking with Lou during the short cab ride back to Casa De Smooth we both kind of agreed on the same sort of sentiment. We aren't just fans of Atmosphere for the music or because of how cool they all are to the people that attend their shows and buy their music. We're fucking proud of these guys for doing what they want to do in life.
Not that Slug or Ant or Nate or Erick care that we're proud of them, but shit, they're all growns up. And they're just adorable.