Believe it or not as much as Public Enemy travels and tours I have never seen them live. So Tuesday night at Ram’s Head Live I rectified that situation. This tour marked P.E. 20th anniversary. With X-Clan also on the bill you knew this was gonna be a night of righteous political hip hop and anti-bushisms. On this night I felt like my future flashed before my eyes. The crowd was quite mixed but there were a number of members in the crowd easily 40 plus rocking out and being taken back to their youth. We really need more of this in hip hop. However before P.E. came onstage there were the requisite openers. First up was Jaheim (no not that one) who entertained the crowd with some acapellas and freestyles. He was decent and interacted with the crowd and conducted the MC duties the rest of the night introducing the acts. He was followed by “the first virtual rap group,” The Impossebulls, who all met each other on the internet. They came through with some live instrumentation and a J-5 esque style that neither the crowd nor I was really feeling.

Chuck D’s all-female group from his SlamJamz label, Crew Grrl Orders, took the stage. While they were a bit more polished and intriguing than The Impossebulls they still only served to be mildly entertaining filler until Brother J came on to take us to the East Blackwards. Brother J rocked old and new rhymes captivating the crowd and sending the X-Clan fans into a frenzy. There was about a 20 minute gap between X-Clan and PE so a DJ took the stage and started dropping classics to keep the audience warm. I mean an old schools et for a group of thorough hip hop fans is one of the easiest things to do but this effort was spotty at best. While he got the crowd going in the beginning with classics like Top Billin, I Ain’t No Joke and Come Clean his switching between eras began to kill the mood. We all love hip hop but you really can’t just switch from Sugarhill Gang to ODB and then go back to early RUN DMC without losing some cats. On top of that PE system was so overpowering that when they started sound check it blared over the classics set and disrupted the whole flow.

It was only a small price to pay because when Chuck D hit the stage it was on. Loud, fast and in your face. Professor Griff was in the house with the S1ws doing work. Chuck D hit you with a few tracks and held it down solo just long enough to get you wondering if Flav made the trip. Then out of nowhere Flava Flav appeared on stage sending the crowd to a new level. They performed for close to two hours performing all of their great songs to everyone’s delight. I think everyone who left the show was more than entertained. Between Chuck killing tracks like “When I get to Arizona” and “Rebel Without a Pause”and Flava screaming out ‘Flavor Flaaaaaav’ and ‘Yeaaaaa Boyyyy’ it was a night to remember.

Posted by Jbutters on Sunday, March 25th, 2007 and is filed under SICKWIDIT, REVIEWS, SHOWS.