"Concert Review/Impressions: The Roots @ Harrah’s Casino 8/30/2019"
Concert Review/Impressions: The Roots @ Harrah’s Casino in “Funner” California
The venue: Harrah’s Casino in “Funner” (formerly Rincon) California. It’s about a 70 minute drive from my house. Ample parking. Smells like cigarettes, bleach, and dirty diapers drenched in the tears of losing gamblers – a normal casino show.
The Room holds about 2,200 people. I was in section D well in the back, but elevated. Sound was good, not overpoweringly loud, good base – treble was under control. When I saw them at The Observatory in San Diego a few years back the treble was ear killing. This show sounded good. Plus, a lot of bass without ever feeling like it needed more compression. The smoke machine made it hard to see anyone on a riser from my seats.
Jeremy Ellis starts the show on the Maschine, it’s a short 3-5 minutes that I hadn’t heard before. No Rocky or Super Mario brothers.
After that the rest of the band comes out to the sounds of Rich Medina’s “Return to Innocence Lost” track from the clean version of Things Fall Apart.
Now, things get blurry, I wasn’t’ taking too many notes of filming too much, but I recall:
• Stro Eliot did some beatbox stuff on (what I assume was) the Maschine using James Brown samples. Sixth (and final video) Fifth video at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/akJ6buuRU93hzVGm7
• Did Move On Up by Curtis Mayfield. (At the tail end of the Seed 2.0 video above.)
• They brought a 14 old local rapper – and furthermore she’s a girl.
• The saxophone player was really good – but he kind of had a “John Caffertry Beaver Brown Band mixed with if Ralph Macchio played the saxophone in Crossroads” look.
• No idea who was playing the bass – but it was good.
This was a show that everyone could enjoy – from a hardcore rap nerd to a casual person who likes soul music. This is a good direction for a general show – and will play well at festivals
My UNSOLICITED feedback: • I think that sometimes – bear with me- they are doing things too quickly. Example: Jeremy on the beatbox – going slower might please the crowd more (which is inversely proportional to going faster will please MPC nerds.) Same with Kool G. Raps “Men at Work” – thought is rapping so GODAMNED FAST now that it’s hard for *me* to know where he’s at – it’d just lose the concert goer who has never heard the song.
A great show, lots of energy, rap nerds will like it, people who dance will like it, and it was a tight 90-100 minutes.