I was the last man on a dying scene
I finally got a chance to see The Wu-Tang Clan last night at Randall's Island in New York yesterday. It was a pretty big sized hip hop festival. Unfortunately my current favorite MF Doom goes on today and I only got tickets to Saturday. Anyway, it was an interesting experience, very tiring as all the festivals I've been to are. This was nice because I could get to it so easily with public transportation. I just took the 3 train up to 125th street in Harlem from 96th street. Then walked over a few blocks to a special bus for the event.
I haven't been to Harlem many times but I like the feeling there. I don't see it as any more dangerous than a lot of other areas in New York as some have warned me. There are fewer caucasian people there but that doesn't bother me. Fewer caucasians except on this day. I get to the area where the buses are are lined up to take people to Randall's Island. I noticed it was pretty much all white kids. I wasn't all that surprised by this but I thought a lot about it. There was a good quality hip-hop lineup at this show. Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, EPMD, The Roots, Wu-Tang Clan, etc. These are all old artists though. I really don't listen to any of them regularly anymore except for Wu-Tang clan. They also have kind of an up and coming stage where there are some newer "underground" type of artists as well. I was trying to think why this attracted about 90% white kids. Is it possibly the price of tickets at $88 or whatever it was for the 12 hour festival? That is a lot of money for a show and I wouldn't have paid unless it was Wu-Tang Clan who I've wanted to see since I was young. I still felt like there should have been many more black kids here. I was sure there was many well off black families in the area that could afford to send their kids to this concert like many of these white kids. Maybe the scene was dying or had been dead for a long time. I know hip-hip/rap really hasn't been the same as it went into the later 90's. Certain artists are still good and new underground artists are doing great things. Anyway, I thought of the words from a Destroyer song "I was the last man on a dying scene".
I had thought of these words a few other times. One other time was last year when I walked by CBGB's the night it was closing. All these kids that still had the mohawks and black hair and all these kind of things. I think they were cool back in 1982 (before I was old enough to know any better). But now, it seemed stale to me. A music scene is an interesting thing. Its very fleeting on the grand scheme of things and gone almost once you realize what it is and how cool it was. But what about carrying it on much, much later like that. I'm really not sure, I don't think its that cool. But its not hurting anyone. I prefer to push things forward in what I support, really I don't drastically change my clothing based on any scene. I did like the style of wearing slimmer jeans in the past 5 or so years, I didn't go as far as wearing the "woman's jeans" like some do, especially in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But, I preferred that over the ridiculously baggy jeans worn in the 90's. Anyway, I digress back to the main topic.
So, I watched these hip-hop shows in a sea of rowdy white kids who kept trying to start up all these "mosh pits". I liked the Cypress Hill show, but of course they played all their hit songs mainly from an album that came out about 12+ years ago. The Roots are ok, they don't do a whole lot for me, I prefer more sampling and DJ style hip hop. But the live band thing is cool, definitely attracts the festival type of kids. Wu-Tang clan I was impressed with. They were actually all on stage together, I figured some would be missing. Its the first time they had been on stage in a long time together. Method Man, RZA and Ghostface seemed to be the most vocal in talking to the crowd. They went through there hits, doing many from their first album 36 chambers. Anyway, so it went on and they kept making comments about wanting the crowd to have more energy. Then Method Man near the end made a comment how in Germany they went crazy the whole time and how they wanted them to do that here, in their home city. I could see where they are coming from but the lack of energy is not that surprising to me. Its not that they aren't respected, its just that the scene is not the same. Also, New York kids are not the same as Germany kids.
I'm not saying Wu-Tang clan still aren't good and can't come out with another good album. But, the world is not the same anymore to receive it. They have made a lot of money now, the world has changed. Public Enemy played earlier that day and they had Scott Ian come on, a guitarist for Anthrax to put a rock mix in it. I think it just sounds really tired and boring right now. I do respect Public Enemy but I haven't listened to them much in a long time. Wu-Tang clan has always stuck with me more but I haven't listened to them near as much as I have MF Doom in the last 3-4 years. Ghostface's solo albums have been really the best thing from Wu-Tang clan recently. I like to think of artists who can always change and push themselves and come out with great work no matter what the time, keep changing. Bob Dylan, Beatles and David Bowie come to mind, there are many others of course as well. But these guys have really done it for an extended period.
The headliner of the entire festival is Rage Against the Machine, the only really non-rap group. I used to kind of like some of the stuff from their first 2 albums. But after awhile I felt they were actually part of the machine. I think they were on Sony records, making tons of money off of these albums. I think the lyrics after awhile were dispensable. Anyway, I didn't stay to see them, I left after Wu-Tang. I was glad I went, it made me want to really push myself to keep changing.