last night was one of the best shows i've seen...ever. saul williams was in new orleans in the parish room at the house of blues and it was all i expected and more. i'll start from the beginning and move towards saul's set as a closer.
the parish room is upstairs at the house of blues with the entrance being right on decatur. previously, i held that the house of blues standard concert area was my favorite venue of all time (having seen only two shows there, both jerry cantrell). this is no longer the case. the parish is sweet. it has an old look to it...wooden floors, ornate decorations on the ceiling, stained glass windows lit from the outside, a bar to the back, and a sign above the stage reading "unity in diversity." there is no place more perfect than the parish to see someone like saul williams. it's small, but not too small with the crowd that was there last night.
so we get into the parish and everything is being set up; jessica and i immediately hit the merchandise table to check what they have and get cool stuff...which we did: 2 saul t-shirts, an autographed saul notebook with the message "may your words bring new worlds," and the lp of one of saul's openers, thavius beck aka adlib. we bought the latter without even hearing his stuff, but it turned out that it was a good decision anyway.
after stashing the merch., we waited around for a little bit before the show started. the first act was basically a warm-up on the turntables by a girl calling herself ladyfingers, dj ladyfingers. the beats she played were pretty nice and the transitions between were ok, but not excellent. she was, however, pretty good at scratching, so it wasn't a big waste of time by any means. she just stood up there switching out vinyl and let the beats flow...nothing wrong with that.
once ladyfingers finished her solo set, soapbox got on the stage and ladyfingers dj'ed for him. soapbox is a short guy that had some good stuff to say. apparently he's running for president in 2012 and you know what? i'd probably vote for him. he, i think, is a new orleans native and had some things to say about his hometown. in fact, one whole song was devoted to the big easy. other songs of his were heavily into politcs and spoken with intelligence. the beats he rapped to were also top notch and this set is where ladyfingers shined as far as skill goes. she scratched up the records in a nice parallel to soapbox's words. his style reminded me of some other hip-hop i've been listening to (surprising, isn't it? me listening to hip-hop?) from a guy called aesop rock. good beats, intelligent lyrics, and a nice ability to rhyme, though not nearly as well as saul.
once they were finished, we had a break while everything was being taken / set up. thavius beck was the next act and the official opener for saul. picture this: a big black guy with a big black afro and a big black beard playing what i think is called the axe (mixer / soundboard / synthesizer). he introduced himself in a very calm, laid back kind of way and told us he wanted to play some beats for us. and that's exactly what he did. the beats we heard were pretty awesome and he was crossfading chords and accentuating the beats the entire time. his set was pretty awesome. the entire time he played he had that calm air about him and whenever he noticed that people were rocking out to his stuff, he gave a sly looking smile and got right back to the music. i can't wait to hear the album of his that we bought. it was some damn good stuff.
when thavius played his last song, saul came out and got on stage along with his violinist and drummer. thavius remained because he plays bass and the axe for saul. my words will never be able to describe how awesome it is to see saul williams live and less than 10 feet away, so i'll just recount what i can remember. he started with untimely meditation, but mixed in almost all his poetry from his first album. once he finished with that, the music started and he went right into "grippo." i can't remember the details after that, but he spoke some more poetry during his set, this time using coded language, walking away from the mic and coming to the edge of the stage when he was stating the names. he performed telegram (playing guitar on it, no less), shakespeare, list of demands, african student movement, black stacey, pg, surrender, control freak, and another at the very end of the show that i didn't recognize at the time. he had a lot to say, though, and we were hanging on every word (not the people in the back...they were talking about t-shirts or something stupid like that). saul talked about the difference between a poet and an mc, not being so hard, articulating what we want instead of what we don't want, and embracing the feminine. like i said, it was one of the best shows i've ever seen...if not the best. i still hold jerry cantrell pretty high up there, but jerry and saul are mutually exclusive, so i think i can safely say that. anyway, if you haven't heard the new album by saul, check it out and don't pass up an opportunity to see him if he comes around your area. his website is here: www.saulwilliams.com.