Unfortunately, the high energy stopped for Common to play...the piano? What he was thinking? He took us on a 20-minute mood music trip that would make John Digweed proud. Yes I know, the templates have finally changed a little bit on regards on how a hip-hop album can be made, but this was just straight ludicrous. I felt like I was at my little sister's piano recital.
Besides this wrong turn, the show is one of the better ones I have seen Common deliver. It had a mini jam session by the band with Common beating on the drum cymbals like the L.A.P.D. beat on Rodney King. It also gave his DJ a chance to showcase his scratching ability on the wax, with great results from '80s dance hit, "I Wanna Rock" which brought a feeling of nostalgia over the crowd.
Common, choosing to perform the majority of his set from his newest disc, "Be", found our man in the glorified position of exposing thousands of potentially new fans to the live rendition of his songs, since straight radio play was not enough to push him over the platinum plaque mark. Thank God for Common, he did deliver the necessary push in the first 40 minutes. Breaking into one song after another, without a break, Common didn't give the crowd a chance to relax, but stayed on the high-energy trip that he was the conductor of...until the ugly end.
Paying homage to his late friend and producer, J Dilla, who passed away earlier this year from heart complications, was arousing when his DJ played a few recent hits that I don't believe anyone knew he produced. He also continued the trip on the hip-hop train, by steaming through Dr. Dre's "Nuthin But a G Thang" and, Erykah Badu's "I Used to Love H.E.R (an ode to hip-hop)" whom he's been romantically linked with.
All in all, he came, he saw, and he conquered what he set out to do, which he also shared with Lumino's Nick Powills and myself in his hotel room earlier that day.
"I just want to make good music that's natural to me...and share it." That he did, and will continue to as long as he stays close to the microphone, and not the piano.
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