By Greg
You may have noticed that we have just passed the 50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop.
It wasn’t an anniversary that was on my radar, in fact, neither Trenna or I were big fans of hip-hop. We didn’t dislike it, it was just that there was a lot of other music around. That is until hot one afternoon in December 2013.
Perth International Arts Festival
Each year Perth has an international festival. And each year I look at the extensive programme that is printed, I’m sure at great expense, and which finds its way into my letterbox.
Apart from the international film festival that accompanies it I generally look at the offerings and decide that there isn’t all that much I’m prepared to pay money to see. Occasionally there is one or two things, but often nothing I feel particularly fussed about.
So this Saturday afternoon in December I’d been doing gardening in the morning and was relaxing with Trenna after having our lunch. We were sitting in the shade of our front porch, which looks onto the park across the road. A gentle Fremantle Doctor was providing some welcome relief from the heat.
There were dirty lunch plates on the slatted wooden table and we each sipped a mug of Earl Grey tea.
I was reading “highlights” from the Festival programme to Tren.
“Oh! This one’s a bit different – Public Enemy is part of the Festival” I said, lifting my eyes from the booklet.
“Well, that’s not their usual thing is it?” replied Tren.
At the time I was assuming that she was saying that the festival didn’t usually have acts like Public Enemy. On reflection she could have been saying she was surprised Public Enemy wanted to be part of the pretty conservative festival.
Tickets
Now, I knew a little about Public Enemy, and had heard some of their songs, but it was a bit of a bare bones knowledge. Trenna surprised me by rattling off the names of a few of their releases, and then telling me that she quite often heard them on Triple J when we lived in Darwin. She was very interested in seeing them.
Deal done! Two tickets were purchased for the concert the following February.
A few weeks later we were delighted to find that one of our friends, Milka had bought tickets as well, and she was going with her daughter Kym. We agreed to meet up at the concert.
Concert
Friday 28 February 2014 came along soon enough and as you would expect it was a warm night. There were lots of light weight tops and shorts in the audience as show time approached.
The venue was the Chevron Festival Gardens in Northbridge, just the other side of the tracks from Perth city. It was actually a pop-up venue in a piazza area the has our state museum, library and art gallery. The new WA Museum has now been built on the site.
So it was an outside venue with a raised temporary stage and temporary fencing. When we entered I realised just how small the venue was. It is nearly 10 years ago now but my recollection was that it had no more than 300 people in the venue and we were able to get very close to the stage if we wanted to.
There was no seating. You could stand, or get into the thick of it and be held up by a small but devoted sea of fans.
We were in New York and we wanted change! Now!
We didn’t have any trouble hooking up with Milka and Kym.
The internet tells me there was a support act, “The Brow”, but sorry Brow members, I have absolutely no recollection of that/them/you.
I do remember Public Enemy very well.
Powerful
Trenna, Kym and Milka had all been keenly anticipating the concert. I was more circumspect, not really knowing what to expect.
Public Enemy started with Get Up Stand Up but by then the crowd was already standing – and quite excited. Then straight on to Rebel Without a Pause.
The power of their performance and the pent up expectations of the crowd pretty much immediately sucked me in and had me jumping up and down and pumping my fist in the air.
We were in New York and we wanted change! Now!
The whole concert was great and the crowd, although exuberant, was very well behaved. Although I didn’t know many of the songs I was jumping and pumping until my shoulder was sore. Trenna and our friends were having a ball.
At one point I was caught by surprise when, well into the performance the two guys who had been standing, cross armed in military fatigues suddenly burst into carefully choreographed dance. It was impressive.
The performers tended not to smile, which was part of the act, but you could tell they were having a good time too.
The final tune was one I was very familiar with – the fantastic Fight the Power. Everyone, and I mean everyone, shouted along with the key phrase. Really great!
After
The music stopped, some of the crowd left. The four of us lingered along with dozens of other people raving about the experience and swapping highlights.
Roadies started packing up equipment, coiling up cables, storing stuff in tour boxes.
Then DJ Lord appeared on the stage, looked around, then climbed down to the low crowd barrier. He was right next to us, and he started chatting to anyone who wanted to have a talk. He had a couple of pens so he was happy to do autographs.
Kym took the opportunity to have a brief chat to The Man whilst I tried to dig out my camera to take a photo of the two of them. I got a couple of photos, neither very good.
I am sure if I had asked him to pose he would have been happy to, he seemed in no hurry to go anywhere. Perhaps he knew about Perth nightlife!
It was a good night, and one of many memories I have of Trenna really in her element – enjoying music and friendship.
Fight the Power!
Setlist
Fight The Power
In preparing this story I noted that Rolling Stone has done one of it’s many lists to celebrate 50 years of hip-hop. This one is The 150 Greatest Hip-Hop Videos of All Time. In it they rate the Spike Lee directed Fight the Power video as their number 2. Here it is from YouTube.