The Colby Echo

Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: chicagoist.com The Blue Scholars and Common put on great spring concert last Friday.

At the end of last week, spring officially arrived at the College. With the lion and lamb symbolism of March a distant memory and no sign of any impending April showers, throngs of students shed layers, ditched classes and made their way to the outdoors. In my long career as a concert reviewer for this esteemed publication, I have noticed the significance of the campus attitude in the hours immediately preceding the show. On this particular Friday there was no mistaking the tangible sense of freedom and levity that had overtaken the student body, and for this reason I stepped lively to the athletic center with high hopes.

As the multitude descended on the venue, the air was thick with this springtime swagger, and the disparate crowds of concert-goers swayed to an imaginary beat, and occasionally fell due to excessive drinking. Even the "Copland" level security presence at the doors, and their subsequent confiscation of everything enjoyable, could not dent the crowd's enthusiasm, and we spilled down the stairs toward the basketball court, full of cheap booze and high expectations.

The task of the opening act is never an envious one, yet Seattle's own Blue Scholars did well to fill this role. Brought to the school by popular demand, (with much thanks to Pete Johnson '11 for rocking the vote here on campus) they received an energetic welcome and reciprocated that energy in their set. The solitary MC, dubbed Geologic, delivered articulate flows punctuated by his DJ Sabzi's jazz-influenced beats. They ended the set with a personal favorite, "North by Northwest," a bluesy, sample-based track with a markedly pro-Seattle theme. Despite his focus on the (obvious) superiority of the Pacific Northwest, Geologic took time out to placate the New Englanders and achieved some level of cross-cultural compromise.

As the Blue Scholars departed, the crowd settled in and waited for the main attraction. After negative experiences waiting for Talib, Lupe and other artists, a hiatus that can often kill the hype created by the opener, this reporter worried that Common would make the same mistake. Thankfully, this reporter was wrong. In a thick haze of chanting, fog and mellow tones from the keyboard, the Chicago MC took the stage and brought the party to another level. He expertly mixed in radio favorites with lesser-known new material to keep the crowd interested. He injected emotion with a few of his slower numbers, and still managed to bring the fervor back afterwards, with the height of the drama coming through his (notably Kanye-less) rendition of "Get 'Em High." Other obvious highlights were his flawless Waterville-themed freestyle, his verbal sampling of legendary hip-hop lines in his song "Hip-Hop," and the incredible dexterity his DJ demonstrated during his featured solo, chopping up the Notorious B.I.G.'s dope-dealing tutorial "10 Crack Commandments" and inverting the sequence into a countdown. Of course, this reporter would be remiss if he failed to mention the knee-buckling effect that Common had on the young woman he chose to join him on stage. The beat and lyrics of the song were good, but the entire crowd was focused on the hysterics into which he threw the swooning fan. This was audience participation at its best.

Continued...

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