I opted not to get a press pass, and spent the entire day in the thick of the crowd watching the shows on the main stage. My biggest regret is not seeing a couple of sets on the Fifth Element side stage – mainly One Be Lo, Unknown Prohpets and Cunninlynguists, as those are the main acts I had never seen before. However I also regret not catching Sims, Blue Scholars and Heiruspecs, who are all great live. The reason for me not catching those shows is that during P.O.S.'s lively set, in a moment of pure serendipity, my friends and I ended up getting pushed to literally the front row. Although in retrospect, Sage Francis, El-P, and much to my dismay, DOOM, were all arguably "skippable" performances, we decided it was in our best interests to not sacrifice our great crowd position to see the shows on the side stage. While, I was up there, I tried snapping a few "point and shoot" photos with my low budget camera. I'm no professional, but they ended up half decent. If you want to see some great photo coverage of the day, though, go to Jules Ammel Visuals or the Rhymesayers Flickr. I'll leave you with a few thoughts I had about Soundset 2009, as well as my photos.
- Toki Wright was one of the better pure performers of the day. He reallys pours his heart out in his shows: jumping and dancing around, using the entire stage, working the crowd, etc. Great stuff. If only the fans were more familiar with his songs.
- As per usual, DJ Abilities was the true star during E&A's set. While Eyedea gets a little quirky during live shows, Abilities spent a solid five minutes amazing everyone with his technical prowess on the wheels of steel. The guy nevers slips up.
- Speaking of never slipping up, Mr. Dibbs absolutely put it the fuck down during his turntable sting during El-P's set.
- P.O.S. may be on the verge of breaking through the Rhymesayers ranks, approaching Slug and Brother Ali's levels of stardom. Maybe.
- Sage Francis seemed to be legitimately enjoying himself up there.
- In the biggest disappointment of the day, DOOM's set was pretty terrible. First off, 75% of the crowd didn't seem familiair with DOOM's Rock The Bells scandal last summer, and thus didn't understand his whole imposter joke. DOOM's hype man was overbearing and annoying. The sound was all distorted, and the bass was overbearing, making it impossible to decipher his lyrics unless you truly knew them word-for-word. He seemed unconcerned with hammering home a truly special performance, and more worried about getting his set over with and getting back in his SUV. Because his set was one of my top three most anticipated of the day, I couldn't have been more let down.
- Why the fuck did Freeway and Jake One not play a one of their songs from White Van Music. It was the perfect opportunity to bring out Brother Ali for "The Truth," and he didn't even do "How We Ride!" Although I still loved Freeway's set, that was discouraging.
- I loved Brother Ali's quote: "Jay-Z put of Freeway's first album, 50 Cent put out his second album, and Rhymesayers is putting out his third album." Although it's technically going to be his fourth, Rhymesayers have established themselves as indie heavyweights in this rap game.
- One of my top three songs of the day happened when Slug came out during Ali's set and they did "The Believer."
- The Pharcyde were the opposite of DOOM, and were one of the biggest highlights of the day. Great show. Great.
- I've seen Atmosphere perform about six or seven times, on multiple continents, and I can now say this confidently: No one, with the exception of Jay-Z, can control a crowd better than Slug. It may be because Atmosphere's audience is incredibly loyal, and it may seem like that because I was watching an Atmosphere concert in Minnesota, of all places. But, Slug had 15,000 hands in the air waving side to side, and probably every other person in the crowd knew at least some of the lyrics, if not most. And I saw him do the exact same thing in London. Slug can officially rock a show with the best of them.
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