straight up, i dropped 80 bucks to see common, kweli, nas, and the roots. i hadn't even begun to let my mind wander about surprise guests, etc.

on this front? the show was worth it. the roots MORE than did the nas songs justice, and while he ain't the greatest to do it on stage, hearing him do some classics and show the roots love was great.

common? i hadn't seen common before, and he killed it. energy and stage presence, ridiculous freestyles, great set.

kweli? ripped it as well, it was around here i started to realize that the surprise guest list was shorter than expected...no mos def for the black star joint, no kanye for get 'em high (great verses by com and kweli here though).

so basically as advertised (prior to buying tickets), job well done. kane, truck (did his verse on the mic real nice), skillz (disqualified, no volume on his mic.), jazzy jeff were all good (particularly jeff).

so, to someone who maybe attended the show and didn't have their hopes ridiculously high? stellar show. it flowed pretty well, and there were no obvious gaps or anything.

but...god damn. i was hyped for the roof to open and god hand down the greatest show of all time...right up until about 10:30.

nobody showed out for dilla? for real? busta was obviously supposed to be there...rahzel doing the 'touch it' beat was on point, plus yelling "fire it up!" at some earlier point.

the only song jay dee related was 'dynamite', which was great...but i expected a bit more. maybe even the roots doing some covers or something (f' the police, slum/pharcyde jams?).

still, my main gripe with this show is the awful ending. i'm sure there was some sort of ridiculous exclamation point ending that we'll never know about...but it ended with dave and erykah walking out.

zuh?

really?

glad you could make it, i guess. maybe dave coulda done the intro for 'the mic' or something, erykah do "you got me"...or maybe they coulda just stayed backstage instead of coming out and getting people hyped up for their walk out of rhmc.

i feel bad for ? cause i know this show was his baby...and it never got past the teething stage (deep metaphor alert). he was visibly pissed off/upset at the end, probably more than he even let on. there's few worse feelings than being let down by people, multiply that by the fact that this was on a grand scale, in front of a sold out arena full of fans and media.

in the words of (the absentee) ghostface killah: f' that...i put a lot of money up, i'm hatin'!

p.s. thanks for that lincoln center show a few years back, after all the work put into this one that fell apart, i have a renewed appreciation for that show actually going off more or less as planned. STILL the best show i've ever been to, and i will STILL be copping tickets next time the roots come to town. peace.