I wasn’t able to make it to the Mos Def & MF Doom show last weekend, so I had my boy Marvin write a review. This is just a heads up warning to anybody else that is planning on attending one of their shows.

–dirt_dog

“I have had bad experiences with concerts at the Congress Theater before. I once paid 30 bucks to see the Wu-Tang Clan – back when I was in high school & when $30 represented a lot more than it does to me today. When I counted only 7 actual members (there had to be like 30 folks on stage), and I noticed that Method Man was rapping Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s parts, I was, um, disappointed to say the least. So when I saw that Mos Def and MF Doom were coming to the Congress, I was apprehensive. After the concert got rescheduled, I was even more apprehensive. But a bunch of my friends were going, and I didn’t want to be the odd man out. So I paid $30 once again, hoping that the Congress would redeem itself.

I would have been more entertained if I stayed home and watched the NBA’s sorry dunk contest.

First of all, doors opened at 7pm. I know better than to show up right when the doors open because normally acts don’t hit the stage until 2 to 3 hrs afterwards. But, due to having to wait on a late friend, I didn’t arrive until after 11pm, fully expecting to walk in on the performance. Nope. I arrived to see an empty stage with a lone DJ playing old songs. My friends had been there for hours and had only seen 2 opening acts. An hour after I arrived, the crowd started to get a little antsy; I can’t say I blame them. People started booing and throwin’ things on stage. Finally, after the stage got saturated in empty drink cups and water bottles, Mos Def appears. This calmed folks down for a while, though occasionally a water bottle would fly up on stage. You can tell the crowd really wanted to get into Mos; we didn’t pay $30 to see a shady MF Doom. Sadly, Mos DEFinitely disappointed. He performed about 25 minutes worth of his new album (Ecstatic) mixed with a few cuts from Black on Both Sides. Then “MF Doom” emerged to join the stage with him. At this point I am thinking to myself “great – now we can have a real hip-hop show,” thinking that they would take this time to perform together. Nope. Mos left the stage, and what was left were 2 hype men, one of whom we were supposed to believe was MF Doom. It was a lip-synching imposter.

Now, you would think the crowd would have gone crazy tearing the place apart at this point. But instead, just a general disappointment settled in. I think many people were, like me, a little sad also. We expected more from Mos; we paid $30 hoping to see a performance that would rival those of his former counterpart, Talib Kweli, who is known for giving riveting performances. What we got was a very unprofessional, un-motivated performance from an aging artist who may be more interested in acting than rapping right now (Note to Mos Def: Do not give shout outs to Brooklyn while in other cities. Especially in Chicago. You’re lucky you didn’t get hit with a bottle to the face for that). We knew there was a chance that “DOOM” wouldn’t show as he’s notorious for that. But we had hoped that Mos Def would make up for any disappointment DOOM might bring. Nope…”

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