J-Banks

Red never missed a beat, and though his demands to the crew to crank the sound up fell on deaf ears, the show wrapped up nicely and the crowd was entertained.

By Ben Rhudy Mar 18, 2007, 18:45 GMT

As part of a full day's worth of hip hop artists stopping by the Levi's Fort Fader party on 4th street, venerable rap guru Redman dropped a short aural bomb on downtown Austin. St. Patty's Day has all of the weirdo's out on the streets in droves, packed like sardines, waiting in line to get into the party.

After a 45 minute wait in line to get inside the party, I was met by a giant mass of slickly dressed, culturally aware types. Outside, there were still around a hundred people still vying to get it, despite the looming start time. The liquor from the Souther Comfort bar was flowing like a waterfall, and everybody had some kind of party juice in hand to pump them up for the upcoming performance. I didn't expect was such a variety of different types of people, all dancing and chatting it up. There was a group near the front of the stage in full punk rock mode, mohawks and everything, anxiously waiting to see Redman.

Back in the corner near the house DJ, a break dance-off had erupted and with each new beat laid down, whoops and yells followed and new amateur competitors stepped up to show off their moves. As the 6:30 start time crept up, there was still no Red in sight. The sound guys were running around like madmen, trying to get the turntables and mics set up. When Redman hit the stage, there wasn't any big audio intro like I expected. As he ran up on stage he whipped a mic off a stand and swaggered across to meet the crowd.

“Everybody...I wanna hear you say, 'Hell yeah!,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air.

The crowd responded.

Back and forth the call-outs went, and until Red finally saw it fit to start into his first song “Da Rockwilder”, a Method man classic. “Sippin' on a forty, smokin' on a blunt, bust my gun of, Red didn't jump,” he shouted, as the crowd shouted back and threw their hands up in the air. As hard as Red was trying, he couldn't get the Fort Fader crowd pumped up enough. I think you could blame it on the fact that most of the crowd probably wasn't there to just see Redman. It's tough for bigger bands to get a good crowd response because most of the people in the crowd are just there for a party.

After the song had ended, Red started plugging his upcoming album 'Red Gone Wild' which hits March 27th, and kept reminding the crowd every few minutes about its impending release. Next up, Red shouted out, “I'm about to show y'all what hip hop was like.” He gave a shout out to “all of you out there smokin' weed,” and somebody obliged to pass him a blunt from the crowd. He reached down to grab it, thanked the person, took a hit and then went on into the next song.

Next, Red blasted off “Time 4 Sum Aksion.” “To show you what kinda stuff I'm on,” he said. “You can't puff it or sniff it. I was born with it.” The crowd was beginning to get wild, as more people pushed forward toward the stage. Red asked the audience if they had seen 'How High?' and a huge affirming shout came back to him. “How many of ya'll wanna see 'How High? 2' ?,” he said. An even bigger response back.

After two more classic songs from the 'How High' soundtracks, Red decided to take it way back and spit a little Sugarhill Gang with “Rapper's Delight.” Finally, a song all the nervous looking little white kids could sing along with! Red never missed a beat, and though his demands to the crew to crank the sound up fell on deaf ears, the show wrapped up nicely and the crowd was entertained.

With a short, “I'm out.” Red left the stage.

Visit M&C's music reviews section for our exclusive SXSW concert reviews of Ari Hest, Joe Purdy, White Rabbits, Star Deaths and White Dwarfs, and Nicole Atkins. Visit M&C's music features section for our exclusive interview with Kelly O. of The Dollyrots, Aqualung, and Ari Hest.

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