Saturday, August 18, 2012

The Pharcyde

Artist – The Pharcyde
Event – 20th Anniversary Tour

Venue – San Francisco Bath House, Wellington

Date – Friday 17th August 2012


Anyway that this works out, it’s going to sound gripe ridden.

I found out about The Pharcyde playing in Wellington on Monday – they’re playing on Friday. I’m on every mailing list that I can find regarding shows in Wellington. (If you’re a muso and live in a small city, this is a necessity). So, the gig was very poorly promoted – and promoted it was by La De Da, whom also promote an urban music themed festival in New Zealand, about which I have no interest. (I will not attend any further NZ festivals based on how badly organised the ones that I’ve attended to date have been).

The Pharcyde (or at least 50% of them) are currently touring the world to promote their 20th anniversary (I realised with horror after buying tickets that I first saw them live as a 17 year old 16 years ago) and were, to be fair, great.

I knew them best from the ‘Labcabincalifornia’ LP (produced by a pre-stardom Jay Dee – later known as J. Dilla), from which ‘Drop’ was played early in their set, much of the rest of their set covered that LP including the classic ‘Runnin’’ to close.

My gripe regarding the gig was around its organisation. The support acts (bar an MC/DJ duo that The Pharcyde had brought with them) were truly appalling (a DJ, barely out of his teens playing a derivative set of road weary golden era hip-hop tracks off MP3 doesn't impress me much) and having turned up two hours after the tickets said the event kicked off (8pm on the ticket – we arrived at 10pm) we didn’t want to find ourselves unable to pass-out and wait another two hours until anything of note happened.

Note regarding NZ hip-hop artists: UK hip-hop found its voice when it stopped rapping in an American accent. Please, please start creating rather than imitating.

So, the merch stand was pretty lame – no vinyl. I did however come away with a (note: singular) slip mat:

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