Up first was Envelope. He is a Columbus rapper, who I have seen a few times, most recently this summer at Comfest. I really like him for a few reasons - he has an unorthodox rapping style, which is a nice change from most rap acts; his between song banter is usually pretty amusing; and he really knows how to get the crowd involved in his show (last night, he unleashed a ton of balloons with glow sticks in them for the crowd to either toss the balloons around, or pop the balloons and wave the glow sticks around). As usual, his set was a lot of fun - including an appearance by a dude dressed up as a cat (which I unfortunately did not get a picture of).
The second act was Blueprint. He is another Columbus rapper, but he has more of a national presence than Envelope, as he is signed to the Rhymesayers label. I like Blueprint, and I have a few of his CDs, but he was SO MUCH better live last night that I anticipated (I saw him and RJD2 together a few years ago, and that was a great show, but last night he was amazing). In addition to his DJ working the beats, Blueprint also had a guy playing bass guitar. He also occasionally pulled out the keytar(!) to mix things up. This combination of instruments allowed them to deliver some amazing beats to go with Blueprint's stellar raps. GREAT set.
Next up was Icebird. They are RJD2's side project that involves him playing keyboard for a full band. This was the only low point of the night for me. Its not that these guys were bad, it's just that they really didn't do anything for me. Their songs are all over the place. Some songs sound like they are trying for an old school R&B sound, others like they are a 70s prog rock act (including one sound where RJ came out from behind the keyboard to play guitar, giving them 3 guitars and a bass). Whichever sound they were going for, none of it clicked for me.
Then came the finale - RJD2 doing his set. His equipment set up was amazing - 4 turntables, 2 drum machines, a laptop and also a live drummer. As you can guess from having that amount of stuff to manage, RJ doesn't sit still for 1 second - I had a hard time getting any pics of him that were not blurry as he was flying back and forth between the turntables and his record crate. His whole set was amazing - from starting off with the Mad Men theme (that's his song), to eventually inviting Blueprint on stage to do a few of their Soul Position songs, he had the crowd into it from start to finish. A great end to a fantastic night of music.
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