Originally posted by manimtired:
why was the GZA set such a trainwreck? him doing liquid swords almost got me on a plane.
*inhales* (c) ace ventura
not so much GZA's fault, but basically everything poor about live hip hop managed to seep its way into this performance.
i knew we were off to a bad start when the intro with the little girl talking was already playing (like at volume 3 out of 10) while the event MC was still doing the intro before GZA came out onstage. fuck. that. i wanted cheering.. lights... fireworks... horns of valhalla blaring from the heavens..... *and then* (with volume at 11):
"when i was little, my father was famous...."
but that's personal and shouldn't even count as a real gripe. gripes:
1. his hype men kinda ruined it. i don't care if they're hype before and after a song, but when your hype man basically does all your punchlines and adlibs the last 3 words of your rhyme, it's a group effort. so that means Dreddy Kruger and GZA are now billed as "GZA doing Liquid Swords." i hate you Dreddy Kruger.
2. if you're gonna snag a DJ to perform your legendary and acclaimed album start to finish with you in front of thousands of people, make sure he's a fucking pro at pressing a fucking button. dude cut the track short about 3 times, thus prompting complaints from everyone on stage, and furthermore starting the track over again. now i don't really care about that. i can hear Shadowboxin again. i'm cool. in fact, i'll let it slide. but you know what you can do that i won't let slide? turn them mid's high and the highs low and the lows mid and do an Arsenio fist pump during your shitty mixing job. just terrible.
nice to see the Clipse had a DJ that wasn't tom hanks w/ shaky hand syndrome in Saving Private Ryan.
3. FINISH THE FUCKING SONG. between that and the overall volume being all over the place.. you could barely really get into a song. why do rappers love finishing their tracks after one verse and a chorus? oh nevermind. i just realized why they do that. so they can end their set short by 15 minutes... i wanted to see Liquid Swords. not some new mixtape bullshit mashed up with a verse from Beneath the Surface, a couple Wu-Tang Forever cuts and then a freestyle you wrote that actually takes a few oneliners from various Legend tracks.
4. when your performer is taking the time to screen a call on his cell mid-song, that's not a good sign. i actually saw Wu-Tang back in '99, and GZA was the laziest, no-stage-presence-having, "i don't feel like being here" cat out of the 8. i should've expected this... but i gave benefit of the doubt since it was a solo show.. and he was performing his classic. but never again.
