Hiphopnerd

There's a reason I don't use my Treo's camera in low light...
Just got back from the Tribe Called Quest show at the Congress Theater, a little hoarse and a little dehydrated. What's that? You don't care about my physical condition and just want to hear about the show? Alright....Tribe's performance tonight just proved why they're held in such high regard by hip-hop heads.

It was a damn good concert, but far too short. I'm talking about an hour and ten minutes long, and the brevity keeps it from entering the upper echelon of amazing shows I've seen. But man, what a great 70 minutes it was. First off, they sounded wonderful...the chemistry between Tip & Phife was still there, they still had all their rhymes memorized, and they sounded completely comfortable rocking a very large crowd. The songs all sound as fresh as ever, and just hearing them boom over the sound system with live lyrics being spit over them was amazing. The group was pretty much all business up there...flowing from track to track with no pauses. The two stoppages were due to introducing the members of the group (including Jarobi, who served as hype man) and then dedicating the show to Jay-Dee & almost getting the crowd to observe a moment of silence for Dilla.

The highlights for me included dropping the volume during Busta's verse in Scenario and holding out the mics for the crowd to rap his entire verse (I'm ashamed to say I forgot some of the words), the crowd's reactions to Buggin' Out, Electric Relaxation, & Check The Rhime, and then Phife dropping the Sox in for the Braves in his Award Tour line that's the title of this entry. I also thought it was really funny when Tip pointed at Phife at the start of The Chase, Part II to say his line, "Damn Phife, you got fat!" The only negative other than concert length was that they shortened up quite a few of the songs- doing a verse or two and then jumping to something new. I wanted to hear every word.

I tried to write down the setlist, and it's fairly complete. Most of what's missing are tracks they did a single verse from or that they only played as instrumentals.

Buggin' Out
Oh My God
Phony Rappers
Jazz (We've Got)
Butta
The Chase, Part II
Sucka Nigga
Everything Is Fair
Steve Biko (Stir It Up)
Vivrant Thing
Find A Way
Bonita Applebum
Electric Relaxation
Can I Kick It
Scenario
Check The Rhime
Award Tour

I'm curious as to how much difference there's gonna be in the setlist from city to city...but it should be pretty obvious that if you have tickets to any of the remaining shows, you're in for a treat. The question's answered...ATCQ can still kick it.