February 2024: ASCENSION
Nice pants, brah. (WBN, 2001)
We were all there on the same trip.
Music
I’ve been fortunate enough to attend a lot of concerts in my life. I got to see the children’s music legend Raffi strum out “Baby Beluga” live when I was a kid, back in the 80s when Raffi’s name was synonymous with children’s music, before Kidz Bop came through and turned treasure into trash. Peak Raffi. That was technically the first show I ever attended, but the first concert I ever bought my own ticket for was the Hard Knock Life Tour in 1999. It was a life-changing experience, and I was hooked on the live show.
I went to that concert with five of my high school friends. We packed in Jake’s mom’s mini-van after school, and he drove us to the Portland Memorial Coliseum. It was chaos out there, and not the Antifa kind that Portland has grown used to. No, this chaos was an ocean of people descending on two venues that were right next door to each other—the aforementioned Memorial Coliseum and the Rose Garden—for two different shows that each featured the biggest names in their respective genres. NSYNC was rocking the Rose Garden while JAY-Z, DMX, Method Man, and Redman blew the roof off the Coliseum. It was a swarm of human, mostly teens, lots of girls. The air crackled with excitement. What a scene.
The show was lit. Method Man and Redman opened, bringing the already energetic crowd to a higher level, at one point flying over the crowd as the rapped “How High”. DMX followed them with his own brand of energy: intense. He barked and growled through hits off It’s Dark And Hell Is Hot and Flesh Of My Flesh…. DJ Clue mixed his set, and when it came time to shut it down, DMX broke into prayer and tears before he closed with “Ready To Meet Him”. JAY-Z closed the night playing bangers from his first three LPs because that’s all he had out at the time. Ja Rule got a moment to shine with his DMX rip-off “Holla Holla” and his duet with JAY-Z “Kill ‘Em All”. Amil joined them for “Can I Get A…”, and Memphis Bleek and Beanie Siegel also made guest appearances. DMX came onstage for “Money, Cash, Hoes,” and the night was a wrap. Incredible. My grandma had passed away a month before this show, so I needed an event like that with my best buddies to lift my spirits.
Since then, I’ve seen Wu-Tang Clan (x4), Cypress Hill (x3), OutKast, Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle, Dilated Peoples, Eminem, Ludacris, Xzibit (x2), Tha Alkaholics, Rage Against The Machine, The Roots, EPMD, Immortal Technique, Atmosphere, Felt (x2), Limp Bizkit (yup), Papa Roach (that’s right), Incubus, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, NKOTB (a gift for my wife), Boyz II Men, the fucking Australian Bee Gees (Vegas show), a shitload of underground rappers from indie labels, like Def Jux, anitcon, Rhymesayers, and Uncle Howie Records. Rappers from Project Blowed. Obscure indie bands, like Circa Survive, Minus The Bear, and Broken Social Scene. Just last October, I caught Run The Jewels on the final night of their four-night run in L.A. That was a great show. A lot of them were great. Hard Knock Life is still my favorite overall experience, but then I saw TOOL a couple of weeks ago.
Damn.
Artwork by Mike Gamble (@mikgm on IG).
I get that they’re not for everyone. Their music, each track, is its own journey, and their albums are best ingested whole. Who has time for 13-minute prog metal? You fucking make the time is what you do. TOOL sounded as great live as they do on record, and they bring a visual experience that must have melted minds frying on shrooms or acid because I felt super shroomy throughout the show, and I didn’t have a single morsel of psylocibin. Their music transcended sound and became a feeling.
TOOL was a bucket-list band. It took me long enough to finally get around to seeing them, but it was worth the wait.
In Other News
There really isn’t much else to say. I chill with the family. Work my day job. Write by night. Keep grinding on my book. The journey is the dream, right?
The world is still a mess, and I don’t think American society is done shifting. It’s hard to tell which direction it’s going, but it certainly feels like a downward trajectory. We’re on the cusp of Super Tuesday when 15 states hold their presidential primary elections, and it’s the same old shit being served at the top.
Out here in So Cal we welcome March with rainy weather, a U.S. Senate seat race, and Oscars.
