Before I get into everything, I would like to state that all proceeds from the show were given to Jen Swain, an aspiring artist who developed an inoperable tumor next to her heart. As a result of having no health insurance, which many artists can identify with, she found herself $200,000 in debt. I would like to wish her the best of luck.
The show was quite a success as performer after performer rocked the stage for almost six hours. However, to be honest, I was only there to see Sage’s set, which was great. To my knowledge, it was the only time he has performed tracks from his three studio albums (Personal Journals, Hope and A Healthy Distrust) at one show. Accompanied by DJ MF Shalem and a dancing banana, Sage gave us our first taste of his Epitaph Records debut and it sounded dope. Although the whole album wasn’t showcased, the songs that were performed hyped me up even more in anticipation for the release. In particular, his acapella of Slow Down Ghandi was amazing and I can only hope the studio version is equally as powerful. After a brief intermission with Shalem on the wheels of steel, Mr. Francis came back on to continue the set with cuts like Specialist, Broken Wings and Climb Trees (complete with an interesting dance routine). Before the Non-Prophets portion of the show, Sage announced the entrance of Joey Beats, a special surprise guest (although I doubt anyone in the whole venue was really surprised). After damaging the audience with the proclamation that they weren’t down with the mainstream of self, the trio made everyone in the crowd bounce ’til there was no tomorrow. The finale was a performance of Makeshift Patriot, a fitting track considering the elections are less than two months away. I still wish it was Whoremonger but no complaints here as it was a great show.
