Kendrick is sounding like Ella Fitzgerald on roids; every syllable is given it’s proper pronunciation and tone laid on the live jazz I’m hearing from the band; the guy on the keys is killing it. They barely let us recover from that initial burst of music, before jumping into Wesley’s Theory. Wow. The guitarist is now the leader; he turns the George Clinton funk into some filthy hardcore rock riff. Kendrick rips into the second verse immediately, before beckoning the crowd to sing the chorus. We oblige. “At first I did love you…”
“BUT NOW I JUST WANNA feck!” (Yours truly shed a tear here)
Without skipping a beat, the band starts playing the intro to Institutionalized. That part where they’re tickling a Rhodes filtered through a synthesizer, or something. Come back, I can do better. But this is the official introduction, where Kendrick welcomes the crowd to the show and shows us love, those who rocked with him from Day One. With that he jumps into the intro verse, and when he is done, he points the mic towards us, and without any prompt, we bawl..
“IF I WAS THE PRESIDENT, I’D PAY MY MOMMA’S RENT, FREE MY HOMIES AND THEN, BULLETPROOF MY CHEVY DOORS LAY IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND GET HIGH LORD, WHO WOULDA THOUGHT, MASTER LET THE CHAINS OFF ME!!!” (tear, shoutout to Bilal)
The bastard skips the rest of the song, and I’m upset for a second until I hear the drummer play the beat to Backseat Freestyle. Kendrick has us in a vice. “MARTIN HAD A DREAM!” he shouts. The crowd is a mosh pit. If it was any less hipster, I’d be crowd surfing by now. The band have eliminated any pretense at appearing to be background noise; they are totally rocking now. After all three verses and an appropriate “BEYATCH” roar from the crowd he moves to Swimming Pools. We’re 5 songs deep and he is not. Mumbling. Or. Stuttering. You can hear every word, live. It’s a shame I’m emphasizing this, too many rappers have left me feeling defrauded after a concert.
I’m an aspiring yet amateur bassist, however I know and have heard enough, to know that the bassist has been underwhelming. Case in point; the guitarist, not the bassist, is beckoned by Kendrick to start playing a tune. He starts playing chords off “These Walls”, and is joined by the bassist, pianist then drummer. That’s weird IMO. Let the drummer and bassist lock in the groove for the guitar and piano to lay over. Nitpick number 1.
These Walls is for the females. I feel self-conscious being alone, and I scan the room for any lone souls in need of companionship. I’m greeted by a sea of beards and fashion glasses. I look forward again. On the 3rd verse I hear horns over the speakers. There isn’t a horn section on the stage so they’re piping the songs in from the AV section. Given the strong jazz/funk influence on the album, to not have a horn section on stage is a major flaw. Still, Kendrick locks into that haunting, fecked up 3rd version with all the venom it portrays. May I never serve a life sentence while my enemies sluice my woman.
A well-deserved water break is taken, and Kendrick briefly sits on a couch on the stage. He gets up as the conscience on “For Sale” starts to speak over the speakers. “What’s wrong nigga? I thought you was keeping it gangsta!” At the end of that blurb Kendrick starts singing over the chorus, slightly offtune. Whether that was by design or accident, I’m not a fan. This is the first song where I feel the band isn’t playing what I’m hearing on the speakers. Kendrick finishes and the band expertly shifts gear into a rock n roll flip on Hood Politics.
FYI, I believe most classic/near-classic rap albums have a section, usually near the middle, of technical brilliance, both musically and lyrically. As far as TPAB is concerned, that section for me is Momma, Hood Politics, and How Much a Dollar Costs. The making of a classic concert hinges on how this virtuoso section is treated and performed. I’m also eager to see if the crowd, which contains a lot of white folk, chants the chorus to Hood Politics. All of it. LOL.
Kendrick deletes the n-word in the chorus. Dammit.
Otherwise the performance of this song is energetic, chaotic and brilliant, sans the bassist. Why wasn’t Thundercat recruited for this tour? The album version is nothing without the bass, and it is a credit to the rest of the band that they hid the subpar bassist. Kendrick rips through the first 2 verses, ending the song with us shouting in unison, “OBAMA SAYS WHAT IT DO!”. Virtuoso test number 1 passed. Brief pause by the band turns into the Complexion beat, over which he sings the intro, then speaks to the crowd. He welcomes the intimacy of the venues he has been touching on this tour, compared to the usual stadium sizes he has seen multiple times. And meanwhile the wily band flipped the Complexion beat to Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe. And he goes, “I am a sinner”, and we all turn to Adele. The impending mid-concert lull is avoided.
Please perform the remix verse Kendrick. He does. Rips the shit out of it.
Next up is Money Trees. We all calling out for Halle Berry. If he brought out Jay Rock at this point to perform his voice the floor would have collapsed from the crowd going fecking crazy. He doesn’t, and speaks a little more as the beat is playing to us. At this moment he mentions that this is probably the first and last time he performs this album. As I sigh, the drummer fecking starts drumming out of his fecking mind. And the guitarist starts riffing to M.A.A.D. city. Jesus Christ. Kendrick goes, “If Piros and Crips…”…
Multiple times.
The crowd “YAK YAK YAK”ed.
Multiple times.
All is forgiven for not bringing out Jay Rock. Jesus Christ.
It’s hard to diffuse all that energy in the room into the somberness reflected on U, and that partly explains why Kendrick only performed the first verse of U, with the residual fury from the last song. I doubt this band has the ability to play quiet, which would require more subtlety.
Interlude. He said something important here but I’m sauced at this point; it slips my mind. Doesn’t matter, King Kunta bumps me out of my comfort zone. Kendrick starts crip walking all over the stage, dancing next to the guitarist. “Bitch where you when I was walking?” Here, the deficiency of the bassist and the brilliance of his colleagues are in full effect. The album version is led, no, DOMINATED by the bass. It is a funky record. That did not happen on stage. Still, the version I heard was an acceptable and enjoyable substitute, more rock than funk. I’ll stop bitching about the bass.
Momma. Virtuoso test part 2. We hear “I need that sloppy” over the speakers. The bassist is absent again. Kendrick passes the virtuoso test here with mastery of the multisyllabic double entendre rhymes scattered through the first 2 verses of Momma. The band? Not so much. He skips the 3rd verse and jumps to the beat switch. Back to the scat jazz which the band excels at. That “You make me wanna JUMP” shit. The floor is fractured by now. The band switches again to the beginning riffs of “I”. Kendrick starts dancing. Everyone starts bobbing. The white chick in front of me starts dancing. I get eye cancer. Stahp. Remember the first version of “I” that came out before the album version? I prefer that one even until now, but I see the purpose of the album version now. It’s more suited for a live performance.
The band starts playing the intro to How Much a Dollar Cost. For once, they nail it, and I’m waiting for the horns to kick in and hear the words, “How much a dollar cost?”. However as the crowd cheers, the tune switches to “The Blacker the Berry”, without Kendrick performing any verse. Virtuoso test 3 passed by the band. Back to Berry, the drummer is out of his mind; the beat sounds like it got lifted from the album and got sodomized by Nirvana. The best part of this song performed, was the chorus sung by Assassin. Dancehall lyrics over rock tunes never sounded so good. I need this in my life now. Free Kartel. Kendrick raps all 3 of his verses with venom. “HYPOCRITE!”
Another water break is taken, and the band starts playing Mortal Man. You hear the strings and horns on the speakers augmenting the live band. With the mood turned down a notch, Kendrick raps, or speaks more, over the somber track. At the end of his verses, the 2Pac conversation doesn’t come up. Instead he performs a spoken word piece. I wish I heard what he said. However with every line the cheers in the crowd got louder. You snap your fingers at spoken word, not cheer, you idiots. Anyway he thanks us for coming out and he leaves the stage to great applause.
As cheers of “Kendrick, Kendrick” subside, someone starts shouting, “We gon be alright!”. The refrain gets picked up by more people, until the entire audience is screaming over and over again… “WE GON BE ALRIGHT!!”. This is the only time I brought my phone out to record. It was a powerful moment.
A moment which got amplified by Kendrick and the band coming out again. The band goes back in their spots, while Kendrick acts as choirmaster. He beckons for us to lower our voices to a whisper, and we’re whispering, “we gon be aight” over and over, and then he shouts louder, and we scream back at him. This goes on for 2 minutes, and then the pianist tickles the keys, and Kendrick jumps into the prelude. “ALLS MY LIFE I HAD TO FIGHT NIGGA!!” I can’t speak for others, but I just felt chills rip throughout my body at this point. Clung onto every word this dude was spitting (pause). Blah. Words can’t describe the moment. It was just an excellent encore.
To wrap this up, the band played the intro beat off the album, right before Wesley’s Theory starts, and Kendrick sings, “Every Nigga is a star”. It was an excellent cap to the encore and the concert, and with that the lights come on. The concert was over.
“BUT NOW I JUST WANNA feck!” (Yours truly shed a tear here)
Without skipping a beat, the band starts playing the intro to Institutionalized. That part where they’re tickling a Rhodes filtered through a synthesizer, or something. Come back, I can do better. But this is the official introduction, where Kendrick welcomes the crowd to the show and shows us love, those who rocked with him from Day One. With that he jumps into the intro verse, and when he is done, he points the mic towards us, and without any prompt, we bawl..
“IF I WAS THE PRESIDENT, I’D PAY MY MOMMA’S RENT, FREE MY HOMIES AND THEN, BULLETPROOF MY CHEVY DOORS LAY IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND GET HIGH LORD, WHO WOULDA THOUGHT, MASTER LET THE CHAINS OFF ME!!!” (tear, shoutout to Bilal)
The bastard skips the rest of the song, and I’m upset for a second until I hear the drummer play the beat to Backseat Freestyle. Kendrick has us in a vice. “MARTIN HAD A DREAM!” he shouts. The crowd is a mosh pit. If it was any less hipster, I’d be crowd surfing by now. The band have eliminated any pretense at appearing to be background noise; they are totally rocking now. After all three verses and an appropriate “BEYATCH” roar from the crowd he moves to Swimming Pools. We’re 5 songs deep and he is not. Mumbling. Or. Stuttering. You can hear every word, live. It’s a shame I’m emphasizing this, too many rappers have left me feeling defrauded after a concert.
I’m an aspiring yet amateur bassist, however I know and have heard enough, to know that the bassist has been underwhelming. Case in point; the guitarist, not the bassist, is beckoned by Kendrick to start playing a tune. He starts playing chords off “These Walls”, and is joined by the bassist, pianist then drummer. That’s weird IMO. Let the drummer and bassist lock in the groove for the guitar and piano to lay over. Nitpick number 1.
These Walls is for the females. I feel self-conscious being alone, and I scan the room for any lone souls in need of companionship. I’m greeted by a sea of beards and fashion glasses. I look forward again. On the 3rd verse I hear horns over the speakers. There isn’t a horn section on the stage so they’re piping the songs in from the AV section. Given the strong jazz/funk influence on the album, to not have a horn section on stage is a major flaw. Still, Kendrick locks into that haunting, fecked up 3rd version with all the venom it portrays. May I never serve a life sentence while my enemies sluice my woman.
A well-deserved water break is taken, and Kendrick briefly sits on a couch on the stage. He gets up as the conscience on “For Sale” starts to speak over the speakers. “What’s wrong nigga? I thought you was keeping it gangsta!” At the end of that blurb Kendrick starts singing over the chorus, slightly offtune. Whether that was by design or accident, I’m not a fan. This is the first song where I feel the band isn’t playing what I’m hearing on the speakers. Kendrick finishes and the band expertly shifts gear into a rock n roll flip on Hood Politics.
FYI, I believe most classic/near-classic rap albums have a section, usually near the middle, of technical brilliance, both musically and lyrically. As far as TPAB is concerned, that section for me is Momma, Hood Politics, and How Much a Dollar Costs. The making of a classic concert hinges on how this virtuoso section is treated and performed. I’m also eager to see if the crowd, which contains a lot of white folk, chants the chorus to Hood Politics. All of it. LOL.
Kendrick deletes the n-word in the chorus. Dammit.
Otherwise the performance of this song is energetic, chaotic and brilliant, sans the bassist. Why wasn’t Thundercat recruited for this tour? The album version is nothing without the bass, and it is a credit to the rest of the band that they hid the subpar bassist. Kendrick rips through the first 2 verses, ending the song with us shouting in unison, “OBAMA SAYS WHAT IT DO!”. Virtuoso test number 1 passed. Brief pause by the band turns into the Complexion beat, over which he sings the intro, then speaks to the crowd. He welcomes the intimacy of the venues he has been touching on this tour, compared to the usual stadium sizes he has seen multiple times. And meanwhile the wily band flipped the Complexion beat to Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe. And he goes, “I am a sinner”, and we all turn to Adele. The impending mid-concert lull is avoided.
Please perform the remix verse Kendrick. He does. Rips the shit out of it.
Next up is Money Trees. We all calling out for Halle Berry. If he brought out Jay Rock at this point to perform his voice the floor would have collapsed from the crowd going fecking crazy. He doesn’t, and speaks a little more as the beat is playing to us. At this moment he mentions that this is probably the first and last time he performs this album. As I sigh, the drummer fecking starts drumming out of his fecking mind. And the guitarist starts riffing to M.A.A.D. city. Jesus Christ. Kendrick goes, “If Piros and Crips…”…
Multiple times.
The crowd “YAK YAK YAK”ed.
Multiple times.
All is forgiven for not bringing out Jay Rock. Jesus Christ.
It’s hard to diffuse all that energy in the room into the somberness reflected on U, and that partly explains why Kendrick only performed the first verse of U, with the residual fury from the last song. I doubt this band has the ability to play quiet, which would require more subtlety.
Interlude. He said something important here but I’m sauced at this point; it slips my mind. Doesn’t matter, King Kunta bumps me out of my comfort zone. Kendrick starts crip walking all over the stage, dancing next to the guitarist. “Bitch where you when I was walking?” Here, the deficiency of the bassist and the brilliance of his colleagues are in full effect. The album version is led, no, DOMINATED by the bass. It is a funky record. That did not happen on stage. Still, the version I heard was an acceptable and enjoyable substitute, more rock than funk. I’ll stop bitching about the bass.
Momma. Virtuoso test part 2. We hear “I need that sloppy” over the speakers. The bassist is absent again. Kendrick passes the virtuoso test here with mastery of the multisyllabic double entendre rhymes scattered through the first 2 verses of Momma. The band? Not so much. He skips the 3rd verse and jumps to the beat switch. Back to the scat jazz which the band excels at. That “You make me wanna JUMP” shit. The floor is fractured by now. The band switches again to the beginning riffs of “I”. Kendrick starts dancing. Everyone starts bobbing. The white chick in front of me starts dancing. I get eye cancer. Stahp. Remember the first version of “I” that came out before the album version? I prefer that one even until now, but I see the purpose of the album version now. It’s more suited for a live performance.
The band starts playing the intro to How Much a Dollar Cost. For once, they nail it, and I’m waiting for the horns to kick in and hear the words, “How much a dollar cost?”. However as the crowd cheers, the tune switches to “The Blacker the Berry”, without Kendrick performing any verse. Virtuoso test 3 passed by the band. Back to Berry, the drummer is out of his mind; the beat sounds like it got lifted from the album and got sodomized by Nirvana. The best part of this song performed, was the chorus sung by Assassin. Dancehall lyrics over rock tunes never sounded so good. I need this in my life now. Free Kartel. Kendrick raps all 3 of his verses with venom. “HYPOCRITE!”
Another water break is taken, and the band starts playing Mortal Man. You hear the strings and horns on the speakers augmenting the live band. With the mood turned down a notch, Kendrick raps, or speaks more, over the somber track. At the end of his verses, the 2Pac conversation doesn’t come up. Instead he performs a spoken word piece. I wish I heard what he said. However with every line the cheers in the crowd got louder. You snap your fingers at spoken word, not cheer, you idiots. Anyway he thanks us for coming out and he leaves the stage to great applause.
As cheers of “Kendrick, Kendrick” subside, someone starts shouting, “We gon be alright!”. The refrain gets picked up by more people, until the entire audience is screaming over and over again… “WE GON BE ALRIGHT!!”. This is the only time I brought my phone out to record. It was a powerful moment.
A moment which got amplified by Kendrick and the band coming out again. The band goes back in their spots, while Kendrick acts as choirmaster. He beckons for us to lower our voices to a whisper, and we’re whispering, “we gon be aight” over and over, and then he shouts louder, and we scream back at him. This goes on for 2 minutes, and then the pianist tickles the keys, and Kendrick jumps into the prelude. “ALLS MY LIFE I HAD TO FIGHT NIGGA!!” I can’t speak for others, but I just felt chills rip throughout my body at this point. Clung onto every word this dude was spitting (pause). Blah. Words can’t describe the moment. It was just an excellent encore.
To wrap this up, the band played the intro beat off the album, right before Wesley’s Theory starts, and Kendrick sings, “Every Nigga is a star”. It was an excellent cap to the encore and the concert, and with that the lights come on. The concert was over.
