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Public Enemy is BACK at 9:30 Club playing their groundbreaking album Fear of a Black Planet in its entirety with a live band. Join Chuck D and Flava Flav as they drop such classics as “Welcome to the Terrordome,” “Fight the Power,” and “911 is a Joke.” We’re giving away a pair of tickets to the show! Enter below.

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Contest ends Friday, August 13th at NOON. Winners will notified Friday at 2PM via Email.

Around this time last year, I was somewhere lurking around the Okayplayer discussion board lamenting over the fact that I missed the first annual Roots Picnic and explaining to my roommate that neither hell nor high water would stop me from going to the next show. And despite my poor luck when it comes to seeing the Roots perform live (I’ve missed three shows in a years time) redemption came last Saturday when I was one of the many that walked through the gates for the sold out 2nd Annual Roots Picnic at Penn’s Landing. Looking back, misfortune is the first word that comes to mind when I think of the poor souls that missed out on the opportunity to attend and unfortunately as Stone noted earlier, he’s quite familar with this term. Luckily, and I use that word loosely, I’m here to help him relive a couple highlights from the show with a few tidbits all recollected from the perspective of a virgin Roots concertgoer aided by the consumption of $7 Miller Lites.

As mentioned earlier, when it comes to seeing the Roots live, I’ve been about as lucky as Ray Nagin visiting China. In my 29 years of life, I’ve seen all of my favorite artists in concert (some as many as 3 times) but ironically, the one group that practically lives on the road, has always evaded me. So imagine my excitement once leaving work on Friday afternoon, knowing that I was less than 24 hours away from finally shedding that “Last Hip Hop fan on Earth to never see The Roots Live” burden that has lingered around in my life for the past decade. Our gracious hosts began the show with a short 30 minute set in which Black flexed his lyrical prowess and impeccable breath control by running through “Get Busy”, “The Web” and even Curtis Mayfield’s “Move on Up”.

From what I had been told, no Roots show is complete unless a surprise guest or two jumps on stage.  The opener featured the Jabbawockeez and my “hangin tough” brethren from middle school NKOTB alongside Black Thought. Considering The Roots have rocked with everyone from Jay Z to The Dave Matthews Band, it wasn’t completely awkward nor nearly as blasphemous as one may think to see Jordan Knight and Donnie Wahlberg run on stage during this opening set. Now what followed from Donnie Wahlberg could only be described as odd but slightly amusing…check the clip below

The Roots Picnic from Shep on Vimeo.

More after the jump.

Anxiously waiting for Public Enemy to take stage, the crowd was treated to performances by newbie band Elevator Fight (just for the record, Lenny and Lisa spawned a cutie), The Antibalas, Santigold, Asher Roth, Kid Cudi and the Black Keys. Of the aforementioned acts, I was most impressed by Santigold and the Antibalas. Santigold showed love to her Philly origins and performed “Starstruck”, “L.E.S. Artistes”, “Creator” and even brought out Spank Rock for “Shove It”. The Antibalas, who later backed PE along with The Roots, delivered their set, introducing the crowd to their brand of  jazz, funk  and afrobeat.  While indulging in a few adult beverages, I managed to miss the Asher Roth performance (oops! *insert sarcasm*) but caught the last few songs from Kid Cudi’s set. Am I the only one not feeling this kid?? I have about as much interest in hearing him rap as I do in listening to Bill O’Reilly speak about anything. Regardless of my personal taste, it was quite obvious that the crowd was feeling him. I don’t know much about The Black Keys and unfortunately, I wasn’t really able to familiarize myself with them as their performance was plagued with sound difficulties.

The real highlight for me would be Public Enemy. It must be noted that I’m a firm believer that It Takes A Nation To Hold Us Back is the greatest hip hop album ever created. So to know that this record would be played in its entirety with The Roots providing the backdrop was enough for a hip hop induced seizure and from the opening bars, I was straddling the line of convulsion. With ?uestlove at the helm and The Antibalas helping,  PE ran through the album effortlessly. Crowd favorite Flavor Flav was definitely at home on stage, taking time to include his trademark catch phrases and dances, all while Chuck and Black Thought helped the crowd stroll through memory lane. Even after the end of the set, Flav still lingered around on stage rambling on and on and at one point asked the crowd if they would vote for him if he ran for President. Needless to say, the answer was a convincing “NOOOO”. Sorry Flav, we love you but not that much. Once PE finally left the stage, TV On The Radio followed. Though I don’t know much about TVOTR, the energy from the crowd was definitely electric and I’m sure most of their fans enjoyed their set.

Finally, the grand finale, (which later was revealed by ?uest on OKP that it was intended to be longer), began around 11:30 pm and simply put, Captain Kirk stole the show. He ripped and shredded his way through what was easily a 15 minute rendition of “You Got Me” that even included some of Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child Of Mine” and the lovely Amanda Diva doing the chorus. Black Thought shined on “Men @ Work”, and after about 40 mins, my first official Roots experience was complete. With my feet numb and blistered from standing for 9 hours, I limped away with a smile on my face.  The drought is over.

If you’re diggin’ Vickey’s photos, check her out at her Flickr page. Full gallery after the jump.

Santigold

Amanda Diva

Public Enemy

The Roots

Roots Picnic Gallery (photos by Sneakshot)

Part 2 and 3 after the jump.

My boy Dennis (Heads of Wool) interviewed Public Enemy while we were in Montreal earlier this month and his feature made XXL! Check out the interview at XXL.com and watch Chuck (and Flav, sometimes) share some knowledge about the upcoming election.

Also, check the coverage of Public Enemy’s press conference and performance on this site.

It was like a live version of VH1 Storytellers with Chuck droppin’ such tidbits how Hank Shocklee at the last minute flipped the ordering of the songs of the cassette and played many songs for the first time live. And yeah, just like De La Soul, PE railed against the 20 minute sets that some hip-hop artists try to pass off as a live performance. Public Enemy went on for over 2 hours.

MORE PHOTOS AT THE FLICKR PHOTOSTREAM

Bonus: Flava Flav on the drums!

Flava Flav Drum Solo from Couch Sessions on Vimeo.

Say what you want about the man, but the dude is living life to the fullest. I ran into Flav twice in Montreal and he’s keeps it real—he’s the same person that you see on TV, no matter if he’s in the bar, in the elevator, or at a press conference. Chuck D, on the other hand is the exact polar opposite of Flav. Yes, we know that already, but to see these two side by side only heightens their differences.

Chuck and Flav are like brothers, with Flav being his loud and rambunctious self going off topic more than once and giving off the wall answers for seemingly straight-forward questions, and Chuck being quiet and collective and overtly political. Even though there was reported tension when Flav started taping his Flavor of Love series on VH1. In 2006 when the series debuted, Chuck criticized Flav’s choice of action in 2006, but there is nothing but love on stage, with Chuck defending Flav and noting the fact that he invented his role as a hype man, as well as pointing out the diversity of the Public Enemy lineup.

However, the younger generation will never really know the social impact of Public Enemy. Questions like “how does Delicious taste?” and “how can I be a cameraman on Flavor of Love?” seem to be the norm now at Public Enemy pressers. Chuck, for his part, steered the conversation back to politics.

With Public Enemy being North of the Border, Chuck focused on Canadian issues. “United States, is the new Mexico,” Chuck declares as he rails on government border policies, and the difficulty that now exists to cross into Canada. In fact, Professor Griff couldn’t make it across the border to Montreal. Chuck also remarked that Canada might become the next superpower because of its large oil, natural gas, and water reserves in relevance to its sparse population.

Of course, with the possibility of the first Black president in our nations history, the media was anxious to hear Chuck D’s take on the election, and it was predictably dire: “You’re gonna see some shit that you ain’t never seen before. You’re gonna see some shit that you ain’t never heard before…sit back, pull up a chair and watch the greatest reality show in the world.” Flav lightened the mood though by talking about how Obama recalled to a journalist that he can never be as Black as Flava Flav. “The fact that I occupy space in that man’s brain is a blessing to me.”

Chuck is also sour on the current state of hip-hop. According to Chuck, the current generation of hip-hop has lost its focus by trying to get rich quick rather than developing the skill of MCing and DJing. He did big up Canadian artists such as K-OS and Kardinal Offishall as well as Much Music and Musique Plus (Canadian Music Video Channels), for promoting hip-hop artists who wouldn’t be given a chance on MTV.

Public Enemy is the self declared “Rolling Stone of hip-hop,” dropping 12 albums over their 25plus year career, and performing in over 67 countries. But do they fit today’s notion of popularity? Chuck got testy when a journalist called Public Enemy popular. “Popular? That’s news to me. I drove my 1997 Acura up here.”

Popular or not, Public Enemy are legends who should not be missed when they come through your town.

So yeah, most of y’all know that I love traveling.

After I turned 21 I told myself that I need to get out of the city at least once a year to stay sane. In 2008 I had a tough internal decision: go back to London or pick a new city for debauchery. An associate that I know invited me to Montreal to cover Jazz Fest, and naturally, I was in.

See, for some reason I’ve had this itching to get to Montreal. I don’t know why, but the city has been on my hotlist for a hot minute now. Reading Dallas Penn’s blogs about his trip didn’t help.

So yeah, Jazz Fest is supposedly off the chain, and the tickets are already booked. Of course this is all dependent on if my passport situation works out (nothing major, I just got to get a new one within 3 weeks). Only problem is that this is the first time I’m going to be in a city and not know anybody. And although I’m meeting people at Jazz Fest, for the most part I’m going to be roaming the streets by myself. If you are reading this and reside in the Montreal area PLEASE hit me up. I know nothing bout the city and can’t speak a lick of French. I’m reaching out to all my Canadian readers, all two of y’all, to help me on this.

I might be podcasting, trying to highlight the culture and scene of Montreal, but its highly unlikely. First and formost this is a vacation/musical experience.

As for jazz fest, I booked tickets to the De La Soul/Ghislain Poirier show on Saturday, June 28th, the Public Enemy show on Monday, June 30th, and for UK blue eyed soul singer Alice Russell‘s show on Friday June 27th. I will keep y’all posted on updates.