Artist: The Perceptionists
Venue: Bowery Ballroom, NYC, NY
Date: October 8, 2005
My first show in New York with some company (Rob & Sheila)–I’m glad they came because there were many openers and none that great. The first were this trio, front-man rapper, female-backup-vocalist, turntablist. They had some good beats (nothing live though), the main rapper sucked, and the girl’s voice was almost good enough (with some training) to do serious opera. I saw her walking in the crowd with the rapper later, and I felt like going up to her and telling her to ditch the dude and start singing by herself with that great voice.
After some other disappointing acts that I won’t bother boring you with, the Perceptionists came on. Unfortunately, neither Rob nor Sheila had heard any of their music before, and as they are very heavy on lyrics, it can be hard to appreciate them on first go. Having heard their album several times, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were even more skilled lyricists in person (both of them), and on top of that were very high-energy. My main complaint (and it might have been the Bowery at fault here), was that the beats were cranked up way higher than the lyrics, making it almost impossible to understand what they were saying. In any case, look out for them if they come your way. We left before the main act (Lyrics Born).
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