City Stages 2008 Review, Day 1

It was a dark and stormy Friday the 13th…. Well, it wasn’t all that dark (nor stormy) when we arrived to the first day of Birmingham’s semi-famous 20th Annual downtown cultural heritage festival corporate music festival. You see, City Stages is telling folks that they are all about culture and heritage (whatever that means), but as this absolutely blistering piece from the Black and White makes clear, this is a tax exemption scam to stay on the consumption train of public money. Kudos to David Pelfrey for writing a good piece, pulling the tax records, etc.

But this isn’t about politics and who is taking public money from who. This is about two people who paid the $45 for a three-day pass and what we saw:

Parking was a breeze. Got a nice spot downtown and walked about six blocks to the entrance. We showed up around 6 or 6:30 or so. The first band we wanted to see was Galactic (with Charli 2na) at 7:45. The line at the gate was pretty absurd. It wasn’t the longest line in the world, but it featured a woman screaming (really loud) that the men had to split off from the women. You see, like some kind of Nation of Islam rally, the men had to go into one line and the women into another. Was this because guards were doing pat downs and they were trying to avoid the heterosexist sexual harassment suits? Nope. There were no real pat downs. We surmised that it may have been a “purse search” and a “no purse” line, but were afraid to ask if the female in our duo could join me in the MUCH shorter all-male line since she wasn’t carrying a purse. Anyway, the whole thing was like a weird wannabe-TSA training session. It’s one thing to feel like a terror suspect when getting on an airplane, it’s another when going to a summer festival. Yay America!

Our first act was to pay $3 each to get money from ATMs. Our advice: do this at your bank in advance and save the cost (almost) of a bottle of water. You might think that since there are banks downtown with ATMs that you could use those if you happen to bank at one of them, but no, those are fenced off. It’s festival ATM or bust.

We really enjoyed the local bands on the “local stage.” The best was Thed Weller, who evidently is a sixth grade teacher in addition to being a pretty solid rapper. We were just beginning to like his set a lot when he was told he had to stop playing. And here’s the deal: the set up over there SUCKS. They have wedged the “local stage” right next to the “Miller Light stage” and also jammed the local “urban” radio station over there too. The Miller Light stage is where lots of the big acts are playing: Galactic, The Roots, etc. So you’ve got the big acts playing. When they finish, the local bands start up. Meanwhile, the radio station has a DJ and is trying to provide a place for fans of hip-hop and R&B to dance (keep in mind that the only other place specifically designated for dancing is the “old white people tent” where live bands play zydeco and country swing). So the radio station and urban dance fans are being screwed. But the person we really felt sorry for was Thed. He was great and said from the stage that he was promised 20 minutes after the end of Galactic, but was instead given 7. That’s too bad. Evidently he and his group were nominated for an Emmy for some kind of soundtrack work they did for Alabama Public Television. Too bad they were run off the stage before being able to tell us more about that. Way to promote local music City Stages. Thed told us afterwards that they’ll be playing July 17 at Steppers and Walkers. Thed was great. Congrats on the Emmy nomination. Sorry about having 7 minutes at City Stages.

What about the things we went to see? Well, Galactic was great. Just great. They came out and ripped it through some of their more-classic sounding New Orleans crunchy grooves and then, as per their new hip-hop-friendly direction, brought out Charli 2na from the Jurassic 5. The songs he did with Galactic were not across the board as good as the tracks on Galactic’s new album, which is recorded with a huge number of hip-hop lyricists, but they were pretty great. Charli did some of his stuff with Galactic providing very simple backbeats, but there were also some jams that were much more integrated and impressive. Charli also brought along his little brother, who was pretty darn solid rhyming alongside his famous big brother. He looked like he was having a great time. The sun slowly set behind the stage and occasional planes would descend across the sky behind the band. It was lovely and there was much dancing. Good to see that there are still a lot of hippies too. We love them.

We had some time after Galactic because we wanted to avoid at all costs the utterly terrible Citizen Cope. Nothing further will be written about him in hopes that he will shortly end his musical career and go back to being a third-rate Everlast in his own private life. No need to inflict all that on us. Then again, some 12 year olds seemed to be really into it. So we wandered some.

Turns out that once you have an empty water bottle, you can’t refill it. This may well turn into a public health matter if it is hot today and tomorrow. It’s not fair to invite a bunch of people to pay a bunch of money to come into a huge HUGE fenced off area of downtown and then refuse to provide water on a hot summer day. At least a public water fountain or two would have been appropriate, but in a day and age where there are no longer municipal facilities like working water fountains, would it really gut the water profits to have a little spout somewhere in case people start to get dehydrated or suffer from heat exhaustion? Guess so.

An essential discovery: the Fifth Avenue Coffeehouse, open during the festival and selling water for only $1.75, about half the cost out in the tents. Also they have cookies. And air-conditioning.

We wanted to see the start of the Old Crow Medicine Show (described as punk Americana bluegrass), but their soundcheck was so damn long that we had to leave before they got cranking so that we could secure a good spot for The Roots. Too bad, Crow. I bet they were good.

We ended up with a solid spot for The Roots as the idiots who watched Citizen Cope departed. The show was great. It was about the fifth or sixth time that I have seen them and they didn’t disappoint. We have been listening to their new album, Rising Down, almost nonstop since it came out. It is a dark, dark piece and creates a staggering and bleak landscape, but The Roots have continued to push their live shows further and further away from their studio projects. I continue to think that they are very Grateful Dead-inspired and their show reflects a huge degree of improvisation, with multiple medleys and reprises. Their classic hits (if played at all) are recognizable only for moments before spiraling off into something new. Favorite verses are delivered with unpredictable cadences, so that you can’t sing along.

All in all, the fans were great and pretty happy. The Roots delivered again. Black Thought did an amazing (and quite extended) James Brown impression. We missed Hub on the bass (who departed last year) and I wasn’t super into his replacement, Owen Biddle (who helped produced their album Game Theory). And guitarist Captain Kirk was a bit of a glamor hog in a showy Yngwie Malmsteen sort of way (and I don’t mean that as a compliment). Regular hip-hop fans might be impressed by a wheedling fretboard solo, but frankly I wasn’t really. Nice energy though. And it all seemed to be in good fun.

Black Thought and ?uestlove really produced, as they always do and, all in all, the show was amazing. The Roots continue to deliver and I look forward to continue watching them evolve and push their artistic horizons in new directions.

Tomorrow we’ll see the North Mississippi All-Stars, Buddy Guy, and Ben Harper. Stay tuned for more updates.