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London and NYC Club and Concert Listings Concert Review: D12 - B.B. King Blues Club & Grill - Friday 23 July 2004 Interviewer/Photographer: Cojo, Art Juggernaut It was a miserably rain-sodden Friday night in Manhattan, but I was making good time. I was on my way to see Eminem and his band D12's long awaited return to a New York venue, and regardless of the weather, I just knew this was gonna be sweet! Running North across 42nd street in Times Square, I dodged puddles and disregarded downpour. I was a man clearly on a mission, and simple precipitation wasn't going to slow me down. I skated across the makeshift mid-block crosswalk the city had recently plopped between 7th and 8th Avenues connecting two newly erected and competing 25-screen movie megaplexes. I stopped only to catch my breath and a few moments of shelter next to water-fearing throngs of oddly dressed midwest yokels; they huddled tightly en masse, wearing "I Love New York" t-shirts under brightly lit, flashing neon storefronts and the spinning tourist-targeted advertising eyesores. Real New Yorkers hate this place. My shirt and pants were by now drenched through to my skin. My feeble attempts at avoiding the massive raindrops in the quarter block from the cab to B.B. King Blues Club & Grill were futile, but I was still smiling as I looked back across the street. My date for the night was trailing slowly behind, laughing at my now drenched appearance, and walking at a snails pace in slippery (yet ultra-sexy) dress shoes not designed for puddles. She was dry, carrying a small collapsible umbrella I had bought myself two days earlier at The Sharper Image for just such an occasion. The decision to invite my date had come the night before. I was going over my notes on D12 and was rereading the content of the B.B. King web site about the band and the performance times and noticed that there were still tickets available. Odd, I thought, since B.B. King's is a small venue, and the frontman for this band is the most popular rap artist in the history of the genre. I then remembered that this leggy blond I had seen a few times in the past month was a big fan of Eminem. Thinking weeks prior to the show of the possibility of bringing a date, I had tried to secure a second press comp admission. B.B.'s couldn't afford KTL a second, so I had written the idea off, but now since I'd seen there were still tickets available, I decided to invite her and just pay for it myself. After I got off the phone with her (my date), I dialed-up ticketmaster.com to buy a ticket. The $35 worked out to $47 with tax and charges. I tried to pay and found that their server was down for "routine maintenance" and was unable to sell me a ticket. I went back to the B.B. King web site to see when their box office opened. It was now after 2am, and something on the site was different. Something was very, very peculiar. For the previous few weeks the promotional photo on the B.B. King web site had been of D12 with Eminem in the foreground throwing up a typical rapper pose. But now, on the day of the show, there was a new photo. This new photo featured only the other guys in the group, no Eminem. I began to have a feeling that something fishy was going on here... The rain decided to take a break as we joined the end of an enormous line of white teenage kids with the random odd demographic tossed in to the mix that stretched back a few hundred heads, (half a block past B.B. King's entrance). "Can you hold our spot?" I asked my date. "I'm going to go see if there is a Press or VIP line." She nodded and I began trudging up to the front of the line with authority. I quickly found the Press/VIP line to the left of the entrance. This new exclusive line consisted of about ten people. I pulled my date off the general admission line and we joined the Press line. Suave maneuver, you would think, only that the general admission line instantly started moving, and the VIP line didn't. The general admission line just kept flowing in at a steady pace while we stood there like morons. When we saw the people who were initially standing just in front of us in line going into the building while we still hadn't moved, any last hint of suavity was killed. While waiting on our non-moving line, I passed time by wringing out my shirt. I looked at the wall just to the left of us. There hung a poster for the band - strangely, yet another picture of D12, sans Eminem. Something was telling me this was not going to be a good scene. If you've never been to B.B. King Blues Club, the performances take place in the basement. It's a rectangular room about the size of a basketball court, dimly lit, with a long bar on one side and a stage on the other. The far sides of the room are seating/restaurant areas, and are the only seating in the joint. The bitch is, if you pay for the bland overpriced food, you'll have a seat, but you'll also have a crappy view. For the rest of us schmos, it's standing room only, which is why I hate seeing shows there. We found a place on the main part of the floor that had a small wall to lean on, I bought us some overpriced mixed drinks and we settled in. The show opened with the morbidly obese rapper King Gordy who came to the stage with a posse of three other morbidly obese rappers. My date leaned over to me and said, "I didn't know the fatboys got back together." "If only they had a human beatbox." I replied, laughing. Their first song, "The Pain" got the crowd thumping, though. Hard, fast, with a loud, angry hook. They ended their set with a rousing and uniquely American chant of "FAT POWER! FAT POWER!" The DJ for the night had an affinity for a sound byte of a shotgun cocking and blasting, which for some reason he decided to play before each performer and at the end of each set. King Gordy ended his set with the sound effect of a baby crying over the loud speakers. "Shut that fuckin' baby up!" he yelled to the DJ. He was followed by the requisite shotgun sound effect, and the baby was silenced. Next up to the stage was Rah Digga, the only female in Busta Rhymes' Flipmode squad, who came correct, looking cute in a black shirt with the pink Von Dutch script across the chest. She performed some of her songs from her solo albums and I Know What You Want, with one of the members of the Outsidaz singing Busta's part. She's cool; she actually stopped by my birthday party at Flow last year with her fiancé Young Zee (also from the Outsidaz), who performed there for me (as a side note, Young Zee and I have the same manager. He performs on the new D12 album "D12 World", and has a song on the 8 Mile soundtrack). Rah Digga finished her set, and kept the momentum going overall, though I Know What You Want without Busta and Mariah just doesn't sound right. She ended her performance with a "1, 2, 3, PEACE" chant, but it didn't really convey the right message since the DJ was blasting off shotgun rounds as each number was chanted. What the fuck was he thinking? With the two openers out of the way, now it was time for the big show. Four massive tour bodyguards came out from behind the curtains and flanked the stage, posting up on the corners. Oh shit! The lights started to dim. The main event! This was gonna be so crazy! This is what everyone dropped a half-C-note apiece for! By this time, I was pulling out my camera and notepad like a little TRL bitch. I looked at my date and she was flipping out. The entire room was bursting with excitement. One massive collective of sweaty, wet, AD/HD fueled, MTV beachhouse extras were now about to finally revel in the presence of the white icon, whom, for the last five years, had been repeatedly pounded into their eyes and ears through glowing boxes in kids' bedrooms the world over. A few simulated shotgun blasts, and then the music kicked in. The crowd started going nuts. You could hear the vocals from behind the curtain, and in an instant, Kon Artis hit the stage already rappin'. He did his verse, and Swift and Kuniva hit the stage to belt out their parts. Then Eminem started belting out his part...but... This is where it gets fucked up... Eminem, although we could hear him spittin,' never came out on stage. The lyrics were Eminem's voice. They were sounding like he was just off stage, but he wasn't. There was no Eminem. The group just kept bouncing and inserting Yo's, What's, and back-up vocals throughout Em's verse. Then Proof came to the stage all in white with a white kangol hat, and the room got more excited. Thinking maybe Eminem is still backstage and he's going to come up to the stage last, being the Big To-Do of this band. They finished that song and moved on to the next which was lead by Bizarre, the morbidly obese, shower cap (please don't let this become a trend) wearing member of the group, who came out with a shower cap and a granny-style bathrobe. He wasn't in their first song, so his appearance got the crowd jazzed because (other than Eminem) he's the most memorable face in the group. Mainly because of his weight, the shower cap, and the scene in the My Band video when Eminem rips off the star nipple pasty from his exposed teat (a-la Janet Jackson). The whole group came out to help Bizarre finish the song and it was at that moment that the entire audience realized that Eminem was definitely not in the building. Having considered that this was a possibility, I'd braced myself for it, and watched the crowd for its reaction. The first 3 or 4 rows from the stage were diehard D12 fans, friends of the band, drunks, and starstruck teens. They were either too in awe, or too wasted to care, but either way they were loyal and knew all the lyrics to every song. The rest of the club was in what I can only describe as a state of disappointed shock. One kid flipped out and bouncers had to drag him away. Flailing, he fell out of their grip and landed right next to my date's feet. By instinct, I jumped in front of her to protect her as they lifted this guy again, each bouncer with a limb. On his way up, he spit on my arm. I'd like to hope he just spit on it and not licked it, but it was probably more of a lick than a spit. Which was pretty disgusting. I then had to put myself in the minds of these fourteen year old kids' heads. To a kid, fifty bucks is a big wad of casheesh. That might be five weeks' allowance or some major hours of baby-sitting or flipping burgers. If someone fucked you over for five weeks worth of pay in five minutes, you would be pretty damn pissed too. The band then announced to the audience that they had been smoking so much weed in the back, that they forgot to pray, "Can you pray with us? Kumbya-D12, Kumbya...etc.." By this time, the audience was really stirring, and getting a little restless. The band broke into that song, whose chorus is something like "You can suck my dick if you don't like my shit, cause I wrote it while I was stoned." After this, and over the course of the night, D12 (as well as the opening acts) asked the audience about 10 times "So who in here likes to smoke weed!?!" It got so redundant I was thinking about keeping a little tally of how many times they mentioned weed. It felt like a Cypress Hill concert. People were sparking up all over the audience. "Throw your trigger fingers in the air!" they proclaimed at the beginning of their next song, and a hundred white teenagers threw their hands up in a mock gripping-pistol gesture. Ugh, yeah D12, you are hard-core."How many people in here like to drink?! All of us drink, except for Bizarre, he doesn't drink..." I see, this is the next cliché topic... I'm thinking, "D12, you do realize you're talking to people who aren't even old enough to drive?" They continued, "I bet if we all root him on, we can get Bizarre to drink. Do you want to see Bizarre drink?!?" Again, I'm thinking, "Does anyone give a shit?" We then watched as a man who's a McNugget away from a quadruple bypass, and looks like he could drink the contents of an inflated passenger side air bag, chugged a 12 oz. Corona while the audience of teens goaded him on with a chant of "GO, GO, GO, GO!" Bizarre's fatness basically makes him a clown. He's the comic relief of the band. The problem being, he's really not that funny. If a guy having breasts and a pot belly is all it takes to make a person funny, then I could round up a few dozen funnier people at the local IHOP. One of the only semi funny skits of the night involving Bizarre went as follows: He came to the stage topless with just boxer shorts and a cowboy hat two sizes too small for his fat head. D12 Member: "Anyone want to see Bizarre strip?!?!" Audience in unison: "NO!" Bizarre then did a strip tease (not actually getting naked) but moving slowly and licking his finger/touching his nipple while Prince's Purple Rain played over the speakers. The rest of the band joined him on stage and they launched into song, while from out of nowhere a little white shirtless midget (about the size and look of Verne Troyer) jumped up on one of the speakers wearing the same boxer shorts and cowboy hat as Bizarre and started doing a dance that can only be classified as a cross between the Mini-Me rockaway, and a modified cabbage patch. The weird thing was that this midget wasn't fat. He was actually cut. A tiny white diesel midget with a chiseled six pack! Screw Bizarre, this midget was fucken' hilarious. Taking a page from Kid Rock and Howard Stern, you can't go wrong when the midget shows up on stage, it's comedy gold. As for the rest of their bits, and even their random expressions and interactions with the crowd, this group was amazingly generic. They emulated every rap cliché in the book, mottled together with two-bit circus sideshow skits. It was pathetic and textbook-lame. The crowd wasn't feeling it. D12 realized this, and in an attempt to psyche the crowd up, the dejected members began saying things like, "You don't want us to go home, New York, do you!?!" This ushered very little in response, almost murmurs, as if the crowd was contemplating saying, "Yes, we do actually." "Then you can yell louder than that!" he continued, chiding the audience and trying to bolster their enthusiasm. The audience didn't yell louder. The group had to then beg the audience to yell louder. I've seen this done at concerts where the audience is already pumped and this makes them more pumped, but in this scenario it was more sad than exciting. The audience wasn't pumped; they were disappointed and felt they've been ripped off (rightfully), and the ones who were ripping them off were begging not to not only be accepted, but to be appreciated louder for doing so, and embraced with open arms. It was really starting to bother me, and from the looks of the faces around me I wasn't the only one. What was bothering me most was the 10,000 lb. bleached blond elephant in the room. The band consciously decided not only to give no explanation to where Eminem was, (or where he wasn't), but they went so far as to not mention or acknowledge his existence, and did their set as though he were never part of their group. It was truly bizarre. This was most evident when they had to perform their biggest hit, My Band, which is almost entirely an Eminem song. They bobbed their heads yet again, shouting random things in-between Em's verses, and singing back-up. They even resorted to having the DJ cut out the vocal track at parts while holding the mic out to the audience to let us sing some of Em's verses. I swear to God if I wasn't writing this article I would have walked out on this performance, it was disgraceful. The best part was when they finished - they said goodnight and walked off the stage, and people didn't applaud. Well, the first three rows did for a few seconds and then the applause died. I don't think I've ever been to a show that went over so poorly, and in the number one radio market just blocks from the TRL set! THEIR CORE AUDIENCE! Never, never had I seen a band do what they did next. They had to literally beg the audience to let them come back out on stage. I wanted to shit myself, it was so pathetic. It was 2.30 in the morning, they had pissed through their one hit, the main draw of the group was an no-show, and the audience was wet, tired, and just wanted to go home. Even though they got a dismal response to their begging, the band came out once again and "performed" yet another Eminem heavy song. I say performed, but I really mean "pressed play on the CD" and sung background to it. This is clearly a very green group that has not yet proven they can exist on their own. They don't have enough genuine "hits" to sustain a tour (as well as their hefty door charge), and the "hits" they do have are basically Eminem songs with D12 accompaniment. As a result, during their live renditions of the songs, the audience is stuck watching the five other members bobbing their heads and spitting out background vocals, "Yo's!" and "What's!" to a recording of Eminem's voice. It was like a bad karaoke singer who sings the backup parts of a song rather than the main verses. Bottom line, if a kid respects you and is willing to shell out big money to see you perform, he wants to get what he paid for. You can't advertise a Destiny's Child concert and then after people get in the door, have them find that Beyonce isn't on the tour and it's just the two other chicks who sing back-up to some canned Beyonce vocals. You especially can't do so without acknowledging that Beyonce was ever a member of the group. You can't call yourself D12 when you are only D10, and the only 2 of the 12 anyone gives a shit about are M.I.A.! The only thing worse than getting ripped off, is getting ripped off while you are in wet clothes...     RELATED LINKS: D12 King Gordy Reh Digga B.B. King Blues Club & Grill Buy D12's D12 World at Amazon UK (CD)  | US (CD) Buy D12's Devil's Night at Amazon UK (CD / Vinyl)  | US (CD) PUBLISHED: Friday 6 August 2004 More reviews EMAIL UPDATES! Do you want to receive Know The Ledge update emails? Click here to sign up!	::: RELATED LINKS D12 King Gordy Reh Digga B.B. King Blues Club & Grill Buy D12's D12 World at Amazon UK (CD)  | US (CD) Buy D12's Devil's Night at Amazon UK (CD / Vinyl)  | US (CD) More reviews