Music

Review: Wu-Tang Clan at Rock The Bells

by AUX staff

The Rock The Bells experience on Governor’s Island in New York City was an insightful pilgrimage to hip hop’s mecca. The past and present state of the culture was evident on many levels and dimensions, as displayed in the events that occurred that spectacular Saturday.
The ferry at Staten Island Harbor was a short trip to take, and before you could enjoy the Manhattan skyline as one of the many North America wide travelers here in NYC to see what might be The Show of the Summer, you were already at Governor’s Island, the site for RTB 2010. A long walk and long line up to the venue was patiently waiting for your already weakening body. The Rock the Bells experience is only built for hardcore hip hop heads, that’s word to Raekwon. Finally, the faithful first attendees were let in not long after twelve noon. With the Paid Dues side stage set up on the southwest corner, the port-a-potties to the back, and the food and clothing vendors along side the field perimeter adjacent to the stage due north, the set up was functional and accommodating to most. A traditional sound set up was employed and for the most part (2 turntables {with Serato-happy new school DJs} and cordless microphones), the audio quality for the entire day was commendable. Visually, the show had good lines of sight and proper illumination at nightfall (the worst part was seeing repeated advertisements for that ridiculous looking new M. Night Shaymalayan movie on the jumbo screen at the back of the main stage. I better see a few free music videos next time I go to a Cineplex. Art meets business. Art cries, business smiles. I digress.)
For the record, let it be known, written in bold, and stated clearly: there is nothing in the universe like witnessing a Wu-Tang Clan concert experience, live and in the flesh. The extra, over-the-top, undefinable, unrestricted and unlimited energy they collectively possess is a marvel of modern music, and this cannot ever be overstated. There is a poetic violence to their vicious synchronicity, it’s like seeing the verbal version of John Woo’s bullet ballet, skewered by shrapnel sharp sequences of skull-stomping beats. Unpredictably, songs uppercutted your sensibilities, memory-sparking skits shocked your sense of time and space, rappers jumped out from behind each other on some sneak attack shit, and overall, it was kind of impossible to take it all in at once: you never knew where to look, as there is always so much going on at once at a complete Wu-Tang Clan experience. This is the third time I have seen the entire Clan reunited, and it was by far the best concert of them all. You could see and feel the rejuvenated camaraderie and legacy connection that has been built between the Shaolin swordsmen. You witnessed graceful little moments, like U-God politely offering Method Man a better microphone on the side of the stage while Ghostface is tearing shit up out front, Raekwon swooping in from the side to stab your right ear after the Rebel INS is done bashing your brainstem, or seeing RZA heartily laugh while watching Boy Jones’s rambunctious performance accurately embody and resurrect the spirit of his father Russell “Old Dirty Bastard” Jones like nobody else on the planet could. Mics were clear, beats were hard, Cappadonna was dressed to the nines, and the light of sound was shining equally upon every Clansman (although the normally gruff, but actually happy U-God and the silent serial killer of a shadow known as Masta Killa rarely take the lead anyways). It was as clean and clear and cut-throat of a performance as you could ever expect from the Wu-Tang Clan. And they did all 5 minutes of ‘Triumph’ without a flaw. Method Man even raised a… triumphant (pardon me) fist and uttered an enthusiastic “yes!” when Raekwon fired off the last line: “made ‘em jump like Rod Strickland”.
Fittingly, it all began with the classic spooky kung-fu sample from ‘Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang’, and the spinal-cord snapping snare and stomach-stomping kick of “Bring the Motherfuckin’ Ruckus”, where Ghostface tears into the flesh of hip hop history with disrespectful disregard for life as we know it. RZA, Inspectah Deck and Raekwon all commence microphone murder over the ominous melody while, GZA jaw-droppingly states that wack bastards get “fucked like Suzette” (whoever that poor Staten Island girl is, I feel sorry for her and her mother.) It was not in sequential order, but the show was a well-orchestrated symphony of rap assassination featuring “Clan In Da Front”, “Mystery of Chessboxing”, “Can It Be That It Was All So Simple”, half of “Protect Ya Neck”, an amazing version of “Method M.A.N.” by a jovial Johnny Blaze, and all kinds of background mischief by the 18-year-old Boy Jones, playing the Young Dirty Bastard to a T, same 1994 style nappy braids, water spraying, wild crowd engaging and everything. With ODB’s mother Cherry, father, and a few other mothers of his kids and other children in attendance as well, it was obviously a special night for Shaolin’s Finest and First Family.
It was amazing to hear other surprises too, like “For Heaven’s Sake” on “Forever”, featuring a blisteringly brutal Inspectah Deck verse, and Cappadonna poppin’ shit (why Masta Killa was excluded is a mystery), and also hearing “Reunited” (but it was also altered, with only GZA doing his whole verse, and RZA doing half, as well as no ODB/Boy Jones and no Method Man. Boo-urns.) Regardless of the minor blasphemies to the furiously faithful Killah Beez (it seemed like most of the crowd was there to witness Wu-Tang), the experience was a delight to behold, and a rare opportunity to see the most innovative rap group of all-time destroy Gotham City. Boy Jones’s tribute to his father was an unbelievable vision, to witness how close the apple falls to the tree of knowledge. Seventeen years later, Wu-Tang Clan still ain’t nuttin’ ta fuck with.