Buck 65
Date: April 22, 2008 Always an Exuberant Mood Despite festival appearances and university events, it had been several years since Buck 65 performed a regular club show in Ottawa. His momentum remained strong, though; whereas I had been previously impressed that he had progressed to selling out Barrymore's, this show saw him touch down at the spacious Bronson Centre. With Cadence Weapon and Skratch Bastid in tow, this was possibly the best overall line-up that I have seen in Buck's many stops here, making for an excellent night. Skratch Bastid, Buck's collaborator on the recent Situation album, kicked the night off with a fun DJ set. I had seen Bastid perform several times before and this night came the closest to matching the excitement that I first felt in seeing him trade turntable techniques with Abilities. Bastid remains a very expressive entertainer, punctuating his songs with theatrical gestures, often mouthing the words, and always smiling. His warm-up set combined strong song selection with moments of interesting turntablism, with the greatest example of the latter coming when he scratched the instrumentation of Parliament's "Flashlight" into a recreation of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2." While Bastid got a few people standing at the seated Bronson Centre, Cadence Weapon brought a lot of bodies to the front with his extremely energetic set. Cadence emerged from behind a free-standing door that had been rolled on to a stage decorated with towering cut-outs of city buildings, a simple prop that he made comic use of throughout the set. The fact that he had fans shouting along to the opening song, "Real Estate," typified the lively show to follow. Unfortunately, so did the rough sound. I doubt that anyone unfamiliar with Cadence's songs would have been able to distinguish his vocals for much of the set, despite his impressive ability to rhyme clearly while seemingly at a full gallop. Cadence spent several songs repeatedly, but politely, asking for fixes in the stage monitors and the P.A. system. While the sound did eventually improve, it was the one knock on the experience. Anything that was lost in clarity was made up for in enthusiasm, though. Cadence engaged the crowd from start to finish, jumping onto the floor on several occasions and climbing onto the vacated front row seats to deliver his rhymes. At one point, he even made a full lap of the converted school gymnasium that is the Bronson Centre. Although DJ Weez-L wore a giant coonskin cap, the venue was as hot as always on a day of summery temperatures, and Cadence Weapon worked up a sweat with his manic showmanship. This was perhaps the most energetic rap performance that I've seen and Cadence Weapon set a pace that surely left nothing in the tank by the time that he wrapped up his forty-minute set. Buck 65's charm has always been in his easy-going, amiable approach to performing, so the night took a sharp turn for the headlining slot, despite the quick opening salvo of "Dang." With Skratch Bastid behind the decks, Buck was untethered, enabling him to shake and dance at centre stage. Of course, Bastid is also prone to shimmying, so when both of them engaged the head-pat/stomach-rub dance that Buck often employs on that song, it was a sign that the night would see some of Buck's familiar routines applied to perfection. The concert did offer some new twists, though, concentrating very strongly on Situation. Buck dropped "Lipstick" and "Shutter Buggin'" consecutively, noting, "the last song was about a woman with no clothes and this song is about a man taking pictures of a woman with no clothes." Other offerings from the new album included "1957," "Way Back When," and the oughta-be-a-hit "Spread 'Em." Buck was in fine storyteller mode, as well, at one point relating a street encounter with someone handing him a pamphlet defining the rules of hip hop. He then described stepping on the rules and spinning his heel, burning the paper with a magnifying glass that he always keeps in his back pocket, and finally returning to urinate on the ashes, all as a way of introducing "The Rebel," a song describing a role he seems always drawn towards. Some older songs also floated to the surface, including an early one-two punch of "Hot Lunch" and "Driftwood," "Kennedy Killed the Cat," "The Centaur," complete with Bastid's scratch work invoking "The Imperial March," and "Roses and Bluejays," which Buck introduced as his one "R and B song." "Rough House Blues" was cleverly cast against the music from The Cure's "Close To Me," while the set-closing number saw Buck sing "wicked and Weird" interspersed with his rendition of Clarence Ashley's "The Coo-Coo Bird," alternating verses as the audience kept time with its clapping. The encore saw Cadence Weapon make his return, recreating his Situation collaboration with Buck, "Benz." Once again, the vocals were a bit buried in the mix but the vibe was excellent. Buck wisely chose to follow that explosion with perhaps his most intense song, "463," which was a perfect closer to a night in which he, Skratch Bastid, and Cadence Weapon made for a fantastic combo. <--Prev (The New Pornographers) | Next (Queens of the Stone Age)-->Return to Concert ListReturn to Main Page |