I have to say one of my favorite people on Twitter is The Roots' ?uestlove because it's always fun when people love and talk about music as much as you do, even moreso, in ?uesto's case. When I heard he and the rest of The Roots were doing a free show over at Prospect Park's Bandshell I knew I had to be there. Despite openly complaining about his ragingly unfunny talk show, I've been an audience member for The Jimmy Fallon show twice now just because The Roots are THAT GOOD. (Also because the Band Bench is a pretty cool concept. If you saw The Doves perform on his show last year, that was my friend and I standing right behind the drummer. I've also caught Yeasayer on his show, which totally opened me up to them.)
One Sunday afternoon I made my way over to Brooklyn, a bit of a distance from where I live but usually worth the trip. I like the laid-back vibe of the bandshell: it's got all the amenities of a regular concert venue, but you can totally lay back and have a picnic if you don't feel like fighting with the crowds. Unfortunately, on this drizzly day, every other person in New York had this same idea, as I walked up and realized the line just to get inside was a quarter of a way around the park. It was still raining a little and I had an idea to turn around and go home, but seeing all the people already there camping out on blankets and barbeque-ing on grills, I knew I had to be a trooper. The wait actually wasn't so bad, and I'm sure I got inside after 10 minutes. One of the opening acts was onstage, although I wish I could remember who.
Soon Talib Kweli was up. I was kind of hoping he'd perform with his big band like I saw at Le Poisson Rouge earlier this summer which I thought was fantastic! Unfortunately, the band was little in brass but big in awesomeness. The Roots came out soon after to thunderous cheers, but unfortunately performed a fairly short set. They explained that it was because they had just flown overnight from a show in Europe and they were running on fumes. They played some new songs from their album that I'm embarrassed to have not yet heard yet, How I Got Over, and some from the very awesome Game Theory. Definite highlight of the night was their cover of Guns 'n' Roses' Sweet Child of Mine. I've never seen a crowd go so insane, but having been there, it was pretty hard not to go nuts over the awesome randomness of it all. I'm really fortunate that I live in a city where The Roots perform nearly all the time because I'm already jonesing to see them again.
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