Hop Hop ain't dead

By Steve McGill

Pandamonium came back this year in force, with Philadelphia hip hop icons The Roots bringing out a large university crowd to the Civic Centre.

The Algonquin Student's Association in cooperation with the Carleton and Ottawa University Student's associations worked together to set up the show, a follow up of last years event which had Sam Roberts, The Dears, and Buck 65 rock the same venue.

This year however the bill consisted of Grammy award winning band The Roots, illScarlett a band which has been skyrocketing to popularity over the summer, as well as French band Konflit Dramatik.

Also, between sets and before the show began a DJ was mixing on stage, playing mash-ups of various popular club songs from the past year, and generally trying to motivate the audience to dance, with varying success as the night went on.

Despite fears that the event wouldn't sell well, despite the low ticket price and outstanding line up, by the time the show was in swing, the floor was at capacity and the stands were filling up.

Konflit Dramatik took the stage first, their odd line up consisting of drums, a violin, bass and occasional keyboards when the singer wasn't jumping around the stage trying to get a rise out of the less than enthusiastic audience.

Despite the obvious language barrier their music still came off quite well and after a few songs a few members of the audience were getting into it.

Up next was Mississauga's illScarlett, having driven into town just for the gig they quickly launched into a charged set of ska punk.

They had the advantage in that a quite significant amount of the audience was there for them, so it was easy for them to get the crowd into it, inviting them to sing the choruses on some of their bigger songs for them, while they remained active, bouncing around the stage.

"Ottawa is one of our favourite places to play," front man Alex Norman shouted to the audience in the middle of their set.

Despite having to rush through a few songs to stick to their time slot the closed the night with their big summer hit Police State.

Finally up next was The Roots, and despite hitting the stage 15 minutes late once they were up there the show didn't stop for the next two hours.

Consisting of front man and vocalist Tariq Luqmaan "Black Thought" Trotter, drums, a tuba, guitar, bass percussion, and keys, The Roots have a formidable stage presence.

Still touring off of their 2006 record Game Theory and preparing to release their new album Rising Down the band never stopped playing, banter being worked into the quieter parts of the songs.

"Hip hop ain't dead," Trotter announced mid-set after a back and forth with the audience.

Indeed their brand of hip hop or new soul, focused more on the music, and with not a turntable in sight, resulted in smooth music with Trotters powerful vocals over top.

The highlight of the night came when midway through their set most of the band left, leaving drummer Ahmir-Khalib "?uestlove" Thompson, guitarist "Captain" Kirk Douglas, and sousaphonist Damon "Tuba Gooding Jr." Bryson, who then proceeded into a 20 minute cover of Bob Dylan's protest anthem Masters Of War, complete with drum solos and Douglas and Bryson running off the stage and into the audience.
After the rest of the band returned they blasted through the rest of their set, giving a shout out to all the other performers before leaving the stage for the night.