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The second track of the night was a Performance of the acapella poem recollecting Sage's forbidden love-affair with hiphop. This rendition of Mullet was filled with impressive extended human beatbox segments and Sage drawing out every syllable which served to throw the best efforts of what turned out to be a room jam-packed with fanatics hell-bent on anticipating his every word. When the well-earned rapturous applause rang out, I didn't expect to be stood in the audience at a Sage show to hear anyone going "bluk-bluk-bluk!…bukbukbuk! Whoo-whoo!" However, the source of these thugged out expressions of gratitude appeared to know Sage's material better than any of the poker-faced zealots in attendance. That was odd enough for one night but the most weird thing about the full capacity crowd was the way in which almost everyone knew entire verses from Francis's extensive back catalogue word-for-word and yet Sage had to work really hard to get members of the audience to not only remember his choruses but to Chant them in time to the beat…hmmm? - I guess some Heads are just too cool and "individual" to do choruses?
In spite of Sage's best efforts, audience participation remained patchy and unpredictable For much of his set. This was perhaps in part due to people at the rear of the crowd not being able to see what Sage was doing from the back of this long narrow room. He did make a point of asking all the tall people to get to the back of the low-ceiling basement club so that all the girls (and all the rest of us who are not giraffes) could get a look in but as soon as a bunch of girls fought their way to the front of the thick crowd only to natter among themselves it was time for Xaul Zan (Sage's uninhibited alter-ego) to step in and tell them to "Fuck off!" Despite physical limitations, Francis persevered with his mission to entertain each and everyone in that room to the best of his unequalled abilities. He totally ripped it with a performance of the Sixtoo-produced Crack-pipes/Different suite off his latest album chanting "I'm different, in a different way.." in a bunch of different voices (eg: DMX-esq bark, club-singer groans etc) to offer, as he put it, "a little something for everybody" Sage was unfamiliar with the venue's DJ CD decks and so there were several incidents where the show could have so easily gone awry. However, when he knocked the jog-wheel halfway into a track, far from being flummoxed, he went with the flow and turned the wheel even further to end up doing an impromptu speed-garage version of the remainder of Climb trees. The first time this uncooperative CD player completely crashed someone shouted "it's hopeless!" and so, always the showman, Sage seized the opportunity to launch into a performance of his acapella poem, hopeless. Fulfilling the showbizz pledge "The show must go on," Sage continued to triumph against adversity; be that a dodgy backing track or even his own memory. Indeed, when the unflappable Sage suddenly dried up one and a half verses into his massive conceptual opus Majority rule, he didn't stumble or panic or pretend it didn't happen. He simply utilised this change in plans to perform a nifty two minute freestyle. Later on that night, when the CD player messed up for the second time, Sage delivered a charming acapella performance of the fascinating Narcissist; a track about the soul-destroying designer brand culture and fashion industries.
The final segment of the show featured Runaways and some of his more sombre pieces from his latest album. Somehow, in spite of tailing off into this selection of his most despondent material, crowd energy continued to rise. Having opened the show with his most recent and most well known track, Sage closed his act with the relatively obscure Bounce. This vintage non-prophets joint got a surprising amount of heads rapping along in unison - and no doubt everyone else fiending for the forthcoming Non-Prophets album. Once Sage was done, I squeezed back through the sweaty wall-to-wall crowd in search of breathing space, lager and an interview. On my way through the room I heard people praising what they'd just witnessed - not only with different regional accents but also different languages and that was good to hear. It was great to be part of such a colourful and divers crowd united by their love of quality music. On my way to getting a drink from the bar, some girl came up to me (sorry, I forget your name) and described the set as "pink….his music has a very pink sound don't you think!?" I'm not sure what she meant at the time… but now that I've had a month to think about it, if she meant that Sage Francis's personal music has the power to engage with a crowd of hundreds on a spine-tingling level of intimacy, then yeah, you're right;
© CD Goldie for ukhh.com 1999 - 2002 |
I'm usually a stickler for forward planning but for some reason, I'd forgotten to check in advance what time Sage Francis was set to make his first ever live appearance in the UK, or even if anyone else was playing that night. This made us (Ladycook and I) eager not to relive the mistake we made turning up late to Buck65's show to only just about catch Andy Weatherall's excellent warm-up set and so we were understandably determined to be there as early as possible. When we did finally reach the venue on Curtain road at 1015pm, Plastic People was already packed to the extent that any more arrivals already threatened to have clubbers backing off the dancefloor and up the stairs. The deejay was playing Old Masta Ace and Salt & Pepa records mixed up with a collection of retro breaks. Whilst this was a pleasing ambience for people to get their drinks and to secure a decent vantage point, the club was fast running out of standing room let alone dancing space - and …the night was still very young…
It is odd that one of today's greatest hiphop lyricists had as his support for his first ever UK appearance, not a hiphop act, not a Funk band - not even a UK Garage tribute to A Tribe Called Quest - but instead South Yorkshire's the Supreme Vagabond Craftsmen. Representing to the fullest in their V-necks, The Supreme Vagabond Craftsmen are not a hiphop outfit by any stretch. They performed around thirty minutes of kitsch '70s lo-fi funky-punk over which the frontman Will Goddard yelled pure bathos; missing more notes than he hit. I gather that The SVC are Lex CEO Tom Brown's Pet-Sound, mates with Sheffield's Kid Acne and no doubt likely to be right up John Peel's alley - whatever; , I didn't travel half way across England to hear a noxious mixture of The Stranglers and Reaching Quiet. I guess the thinking behind the booking was to expand the horizons of all the hiphop Heads attending that night but if so, why were the SVC not utilised as Sage's live backup? Anyhow, people continued pouring in, in spite of that raucous ramshackle and as I stood in this human pressure-cooker of a club, surrounded by a growing and evermore disparate swarm of folk, I could tell this was not going to be any ordinary rap show.
Following another 15 minutes or so of records and another selection of breaks including those used by The Aspects, there was a brief silence before the main act did his thing. Rap acts have, for many years, been rightly criticised for lacklustre stage-presence and masturbatory performances which make the audience feel guilty for watching. Subsequently, many of hiphop's bigger names have tried to remedy this poor reputation by incorporating wild one-upmanship antics into their shows such as driving on stage in a car to juggle chainsaws before a pornographic projection screen backdrop. Well, in this instance, a one tired yet enthusiastic man, a rickety chair, a microphone and a seriously temperamental CD deck was all it took to set in motion the best hiphop performance I've seen all year! In the absence of a raised stage, Sage climbed onto his chair to the sound of Shut up, be happy (the opening skit from Ice T's The iceberg LP). During this intro sequence, he proceeded to wave his open hands and point accusingly like a demonic cognitive-traffic conductor to give life to the intro's eerie announcement of the abolition of civil liberties. He closed this germane appropriation of Ice-T's intro about Marshal law with an equally timely allusion to PE and all they stood for with the announcement, "Consider yourself warned!!" Now with introductions and salutations out the way, the show got underway for real with Sage launching into his most well known track, makeshift patriot. This future-classic piece of acerbic social commentary has been doing the rounds on the net and on very limited edition 7" for a while now and even before it's official release, everyone in the venue knew the track word for word - which goes to show that be it online, offline or Central-line, hiphop's community and oral tradition is as vibrant as it ever was. Usually, when an album starts with the most well known track or when a show kicks off with that artist's most well known song, the only way is down - but this show found Sage Francis defying conventions and surpassing expectations all the way! Whilst Makeshift patriot's many adlibs including "Does my hair look good" are supposed to mock the self-regarding American media's response to 9/11, it also encapsulated the way in which Francis's music is both so personal and public at the same time. That night, track after track of intense private musings were translated and transformed into hilarious exhibitionist performances. For example, the "I wanna show you something" quoted from his sister at the top of inherited scars became one of the night's most successful call and response routines. Unlike a certain "Shady" megastar, Sage Francis is evidently one of those pioneering Rap artists who continues to blur that line between personal and private without ever cheapening the delicate truths at the core of what he's expressing..
Whereas Personal Journals employed snippets of Paul Francis's earliest raps to provide relief from the bouts of morbid introspection, the gig found sage often achieving a similar effect by bursting into parodies and cheesy lip-sinking homage - such as with Paul Simon's Fifty ways to leave your lover. After the performance of his two most well known and loved creations, Sage looked out at the very diverse audience, stepped down from his chair and, hoping to warm up and lubricate what remained an overawed crowd, unleashed that now notorious Godzilla sampling instrumental. Sage proceeded to recite what started as Pharoahe Monch's Simon Says. However, his interpretation soon featured certain more socially sensitive alterations including "Women, hold onto your dignity!" This type of light-hearted interlude served as
Much-needed emotional counterbalances to tracks like a remixed version of AOI's Rewrite which lacked the melancholic trumpet playing that originally turned a bitter rap into a bitter-sweet song. Conversely, a tribute to my childhood heroes The 2-live crew found their infamous fuck shop transformed into the lively call & response The Veg shop. Lines like "eat more broccoli, eat-eat more broccoli!…Eat more cauliflower, eat-eat more cauliflower!" stood in stark contrast to the chilling Eviction notice and it's sinister signifyin' upon that cliché hiphop chant "I'm in the house! I'm in the house!…"
This lissom showman wholeheartedly embraced and encouraged the interactive vibe of the night, continually teasing gals and goading inattentive guys in the first three or so rows. If he wasn't questioning the dress sense of Mr "Hey look! I'm a hiphopper!" or Miss "my mum laid my clothes out for me this morning!" he was striding out into the crowd to make gas-face wall-flowers dance with him. For anyone thinking that Sage is an idol for newjacks and dilettantes, the night produced a noteworthy positive correlation between the intensity of crowd participation and the further Sage delved back into his recording career. He may have made the sarcastic declaration "now everyone sing along - not just this one guy" during his old track Whoremunger but finally people appeared to twig that it's Sage's job to do the verses and if he needed three hundred hypemen, he would have hired them. It's difficult to top the experience of being in an audience of hundreds all singing "I'm a whore…a whore on drugs." Still, Still, It all finally came together for Come-come now where the crate-digging audience were united in their ironic chanting of the hook "make love to the present, fuck the past!"
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