Originally published at BrooklynVegan.com (read the comments to see the glowing praise about yours truly).
This is the El-Product summer...
The air was so thick Saturday night, that it’s going take weeks to clean off the thick film of hip-hop lathered on the walls of the Fillmore. Your run-of-the mill hip-hop concert consists of an agitated performer hyperaware of the impending doom of his genre; a performer who consciously takes the pulse of hip-hop every thirty seconds, only to lash out at any perceived threat like a cranky old man. Instead, El-P chose to take the pulse of America and lash out at the forces destroying us from within.
EL-P’s on another level like that…
The creative energy he supplied was forward moving even
though the subject matter he covered was steeped in apocalyptic rage. Over the
years, EL-P has crafted an aesthetic which wholly manifested itself into a
perfected visual of doom and disease. He graced the stage covered in bloody
scabs, donning a monkey suit. The atomic bomb landed and EL-P was the only
survivor. He railed against strip malls and the homogeneous tendency of Middle America. He
told tales of late night drug runs on the Lower East Side, which yielded the shittiest coke on earth. He delivered a scathing tract against the Bush administration and indicted them for the pile of bullshit they
sold America.
America is a dirty place. His anti-war screed lead into a blistering version of ‘Up All
Night’ which produced a mushroom cloud of energy and vitriol. As the mosh pit
reached its zenith, an exhausted El-P collapsed on stage and laid motionless
representing the “thousands of soldiers that have died for lies.” His splayed
corpse was soundtracked by Radiohead’s ‘The National Anthem’ and a Tribe Called
Quest's, ‘Can I Kick It.’ When the crowd chanted “Yes you can”, El-P rose from
the dead and finished off his vision of 21st century America in all its fucked
up glory.
DOWNLOAD:
MP3 EL-P - Tuned Mass Damper
More Photos: EL-P @ Fillmore 6/09/07
And I'm cryin'....
"I'll Sleep When You're Dead" was like a sonic death knell to all of the over commercialized bullshit the rap(e) industry has become. It has become Neo Tokyo in a sense and a lot of us are just waiting around for the "Akira/Testsuo/Kaneda" combination that's gonna destroy it all (cuz bad things come in threes) and wipe the slate almost clean so it all can almost start over. Great post, great pics...that's why you're in my Top 40 on MySpace.
One.
Posted by: Dart_Adams | June 17, 2007 at 09:53 PM
Fuck the haters. That was a great review. Nice work, AC.
Posted by: jeff | June 18, 2007 at 01:22 PM
Lovely write-up, AC. Keep on keepin' on with this.
Posted by: floodwatch | June 22, 2007 at 04:41 PM
Dart, Jeff, Flood:
thanks for the props!
Posted by: AngryCitizen | June 27, 2007 at 09:33 PM
Hey AC,
I was at that show too, apparently not too far from where your shots were taken. I bet we were right next to each other and never knew it.
Anyway, I'm posting my photos and some videos (if my camera quits being a piece of shit) on Monday if you want to check them out.
Posted by: Charlie | June 29, 2007 at 03:36 AM
Charlie,
Were you the guy with the long air leaning on the stage?
Anyway, cant wait to the videos you shot.
Posted by: AngryCitizen | July 03, 2007 at 03:44 PM
Nah, I was about five spots to the left of him. But that guy was standing next to me in that same spot at the Bowery show in March. Guess we just both love to photograph El-P.
Posted by: Charlie | July 07, 2007 at 02:29 AM
Lucky to find you, keep on the good workk guys! Best of luck.<
Posted by: Timmy | November 07, 2008 at 02:11 AM