I’m listing the best live performances I’ve seen in the Zeroes. It struck me while writing this: I have not seen many live shows aside from my friends’ performances. Ah well.

By the way, i’m not including like theater or sporting events or dance shows and the like. You know what I’m saying? This is for “concert” or things that are basically like concerts.

10. Koba, 2006
East Meets Words, Cambridge, MA
If I remember correctly, Koba was the first rapper to do a feature set at this open mic series. And it was crazy because he actually rocked it! A bookstore!

More than that, it made me feel like – wait, we can do anything we want here?

9. Brown Star, 2009
East Meets Words, Cambridge, MA
What I like about these brothers is that they don’t come from a slam-influenced world – they both come from theater. Thus, they are not bound by the same theoretical limits many of us (I mean folks roughly my age I guess) impose on ourselves by accident. They had pieces that went like 10 or 15 minutes long, but the great thing about that was it never felt stagnant. No matter how long the pieces were, they were always moving, nothing was accidental or unplanned – it was all paced out perfectly.

Even more, I love seeing performers I haven’t seen before do amazing work. It makes me feel like spoken word is not dying.

8. Beau Sia, 2007
Boston University, Boston, MA
Beau is pretty much always great, but on this evening at BU he was more sharp than I had ever seen him. There was some college student performers that night who were at various levels of proficiency when it came to writing, but Beau took that all in and spit it back out with fire. He’s like a monster that swallows mediocre poetry and returns it as amazing isht.

7. Ishle Yi Park, 2007
East Meets Words, Cambridge, MA
I have seen Ishle turn in her fair share of amazing performances, but I wasn’t fully prepared for what she was bringing that night. I was the host for that evening, and it vaguely reminded me of a feature I did in New York at 13 in like 2001 when she was the host. The amount of living and growing in those intervening years we both had done made it seem like we were completely different people, and I was so touched by her presence, that she was actively moving forward in a way I think I had forgotten how to do.

6. Bao Phi, 2009
Amherst College, Amherst, MA
I’ve known Bao for like 8 or 9 or 10 years and it’s weird that during that time, the following has happened ahow many times: we’re doing a show together, and Bao sheepishly tells the crowd he’s gonna try a new piece that he doesn’t know how he feels about. He might say there are some things he needs to edit, but that he wanted to try it out in front of the crowd. Then he proceeds to unleash the most amazing soul-breaking pulse-stopping piece I’ve heard in a year. What is up with that Bao?

So I choose 2009 as the year this happened, with his “Fuck this War” poem. But it’s happened in the past with “Quincy Nguyen” and “Bread and Glass” and “Race” and “Yellow/Brown Babies for the Revolution” and probably 5 others. Bao Phi is unfuckwitable. Please believe that.

5. I Was Born with Two Tongues, 2003
Hothouse, Chicago, IL
Last Tongues show of all time/first Tongues show of my life. I coulda watched two more hours of this show, but the venue had booked another act afterward, and you know, things are what they are.

4. The Roots, 2000
930 Club, Washington, DC
My first summer after college I was living in DC. The Internet was pretty new (to me) at that time, and so I had bee jumping on spitkicker.com all the time, and saw The Roots were about to swing through my new hometown. When people say you have to see them live to appreciate them, that is no joke. A fight broke out in the front row, and ?uest was leaning out from behind the drumkit to take a look and didn’t lose the beat once. This was also the night I first learned that Black Thought is like a monster whose sole purpose is to rhyme the hell out of a mic until nobody can ever use it again. Those guys are pros.

3. De La Soul, 2005
Paradise Rock Club, Boston, MA
Theresa paid for my ticket as a gift, I think since she had grown up in New York, she had gotten to see De La before, so I was lucky to be able to catch them. Even though those dudes were a lot closer to 40 than 20 at the time, they still knew how to rock it.

The one awkward moment was that a bookish girl standing next to me was dancing the whole night, but her dancing looked kinda like running in place. I think she had fun though. That’s the thing about De La – their fans even include nerds like me and bookish girls who run in place.

2. Kiwi, 2008
Pomona College, CA
Me and Kiwi and Bao set ourselves up as a bill in 2008 – trying to get schools to hire three seasoned API performers who wanted to perform together. The trouble was, almost every show there was some issue with sound or venue that made it near impossible for Kiwi to put on a perfect set. It’s easier for Bao & me because we’re just poets, but a rapper needs the right confluence of factors, and the right attitude and mindset on the part of organizers to make for a set that they’ll be happy with.

I’ve seen the homie struggle thru wack mics and bad sound techs, but this was the night it was all there. At Pomona College, the lighting was beautiful and the sound was amazing. Combine that with an enthusiastic crowd, and Kiwi’s set was effing MAGIC. This is what it means when an emcee needs just one mic to rock a crowd. I have never seen another performer truly connect with a crowd like Kiwizzo did that night…

1. Prince, 2004
TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, MA
…except once.

Is it possible that Prince is not a real person, but actually a figment of my magnificent imagination? Is it possible a human being could be this phenomenally talented?

Tags: music

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