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January 31, 2005
Jan. 26 Hangar 18/OneBelo show; Opinion #2
HUSTICIOUS:
I was terrified at the start of this show that it was going to be the saddest hiphop performance of my short life. Ice Gorilla and I walked into Berbati's at 10:30 to find a crowd of approximately eight people milling around in the corners. Aware that the culture of hiphop demands that the performers "get the party started" through a combination of audience shout-backs and arm raises, I couldn't imagine anything sadder (except perhaps for 150,000 innocents killed in a terrible natural disaster) than a rapper struggling to get a tiny, bedraggled group of white Portland hipsters to shake their groove thangs. Upon mounting the stage, OneBelo promptly informed us that he had just had his nice coat stolen out of his car, which also happened to have his wallet in it. He made a funny joke about how if he was in his hometown of Detroit he would've been wearing the jacket because of the ass-cold climate, but you could still tell he was really down and out. On top of it all, he sounded deathly ill. The odds were, to say the least, stacked against this show.
To my delighted surprise however, OneBelo bounced back and threw down a great performance. He's a talented rapper with witty lyrics about the disparity between mainstream and underground rap, and then some weird, funny stuff like his riff on falling in love with an extraterrestrial. The beats had little flair and seemed designed to be simply rhythm sections for the words, though my brother swears that on OneBelo's records as his other persona OneManArmy and also with his group Binary Star, the beats are "hella tight." The mellow beats were fitting on this night anyway, though, as OneBelo was definitely low energy, but he seemed pensive and focused, and it was fascinating just hearing his thoughts on things. The audience was quiet but animated and engaged, and as the show went on, more people arrived until by the end, there was actually a respectable and extremely appreciative crowd in attendance. Relatively speaking (as in, the ratio of how good the show was to what the performer had to overcome), OneBelo was stunning.
Then Hangar 18 hit the stage, a crew that I felt like everyone was skeptical about. Ice Gorilla claimed their beats are "from what I've heard, weird and experimental" and the Mercury gave them a rather cynical writeup that I guess they read aloud later in the show (after I'd left, reluctantly). Word on the street was that OneBelo was going to steal the show, and he certainly could have had Hangar 18 not been so AWESOME. This was the one of the stranger assortments of hiphop artists I've seen: a big, fat white guy with a goatee (name: Alaska), a super preppy black dude in jeans and a wool sweater (name: WindnBreeze; Yipes.), and the most unlikely hiphop DJ imaginable, a short, squat white guy with this Burning Man-style chin beard (name unknown). And together, they completely lit the place on fire. Alaska is an amazing rapper, spitting rapid-fire lyrics with amazing speed and precision. He could have been rapping alone, with no supporting help or beats, and he would have dominated. But the weird DJ and WindnBreeze (God, I can't get over how lame that name is) fleshed things out nicely. WindnBreeze was a less stellar rapper--when things got fast he just shouted jibberish in a rap-like manner--but he had great stage presence and humor. He's the party starter in the group. And the Burning Man DJ was off the hook; I'm not an expert so maybe he was doing what they all do, but I couldn't take my eyes off him--he scratched and flipped with the smoothness of a machine, as if the turntables were an organic part of his body and mind. I've never heard Hangar 18's albums but their live performance is truly impressive, and it seemed like the songs were well-written and arranged, too, and not just fluff with a charismatic delivery.
ICE GORILLA:
The second half of the recent Hangar 18 show at Berbati’s was as shocking, or more, as the first. I had expected prog-rap emcees drably flowing over electronic garbage dumps of beats courtesy of the increasingly annoying El-P. What I got was two good-natured, extremely talented emcees happy to be enthusiastically ripping mics in front of a crowd of maybe 40 people.
Near the end of the show, Alaska whipped out a recent issue of the Portland Mercury and read quotes condemning the group and their fans as “lifeless” rappers and their fans as “robots.” Incredulously, the paper claimed that the group was “wik wik wack” (in the words of Rakim) because of their inability to “move the crowd.” If anything happened on Wednesday night at Berbati’s, it was that the crowd got itself a movin’ and a shakin’.
Nothing seemed robotic or lifeless about the damn good time Hangar 18 was having on stage, tiny crowd or not. At one point when an overzealous fan stole a Hangar 18 beer coozie, intended for giveaway, from the stage, Windnbreeze directed the crowd in a group-booing of the offender. Minutes later, all was forgiven when Alaska, a portly white guy, chicken-walked across the stage in response to the same fan's fervored dancing.
As the final song was cued and the hard rocking steel of a Guns ‘n’ Roses sample poured from the speakers, Windnbreeze said, “it’s a little different than the album, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun live,” and tore into “Where We At.” It highlighted the message of the whole show: whatever Hangar 18 sounds like on CD, in concert they’re just down to have a good time.
Drinks Drunk:
Husticious: 1 bottle PBR
Ice Gorilla: 2 bottles PBR
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Posted by H & IG at January 31, 2005 1:22 PM
