DOOM (2/13/2010)

by Paul on February 25th, 2010

As it stands, no one really knows what to expect from a DOOM live show. For years, the stories of impostors, not showing up, and lip-syncing have become just another added aspect to the mystery of his persona. However, it is impossible to knock what he can do on record, so regardless, fans (including myself) shell out to see him perform in person. Both times that I’ve seen him in the last year have been disappointments, though, and this concert experience ranks as one of the worst I’ve ever had.

First, some notes about the non-musical side of things. The Congress Theater’s doors were scheduled to open at 7, and presumably they did, but when I showed up at a little after 8, there was a line that wrapped around the entire building — for the will call ticket holders. Luckily, I found the people I was to meet about halfway up the line, but it still took us 45 minutes or so to get into the building. There is no possible justification for this, but we stuck it out and went to the seats in the balcony only to find that no one had taken the stage yet. Now this would not have been an issue, but there were 5 acts on the bill. You can do the math.

Anyway, openers BBU are a young, local hip hop group that at this stage are not particularly good. They aren’t bad per se, but they have no distinguishing characteristics and are not overly talented. By the end of their set, they were being booed, a trend for the evening, but their closer ‘Chi Don’t Dance’ was actually pretty fun and by far their best song. Within minutes, the DJ for the next act Qwel & the Maker was setting up, but there were some technical difficulties. To his credit, Qwel did some a cappella rhyming that was actually pretty impressive. Unfortunately, this was the highlight of his set. Once the Maker started turning out the beats, the songs became very repetitive and boring, and somehow Qwel had forgotten about all of the different flows that he displayed in his “warm-up”. He was also booed.

Thankfully, the next act also set up quickly. Mike Relm is a DJ who has managed to link his laptop and turntables to a video projector. The result is a very cool show and by far the best thing to happen on this particular evening. Blending fan favorite samples (‘Robot Rock’, ‘Paper Planes’) with movie and youtube clips, he displayed incredible scratching ability along with cultural savvy. 65 minutes is a little much, though, with the people on the floor for over four hours now. As he is finishing, someone comes out from backstage and tells him to keep going, so he leads a singalong to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ over a backbeat. Overall, his was a very good set, albeit about twenty minutes too long.

But here are where the real problems start. The DJ for Mos Def was set up in a matter of minutes and was spinning just to provide some noise for the crowd. After about 25 minutes, though, the boos started. The DJ began to look around nervously and repeatedly shrugged his shoulders to the crowd. After about 35 minutes, he went to his mic and reported that both Mos and DOOM were in the building, which was received with raucous applause. After another fifteen minutes of nothing, however, things began to get ugly. The crowd began to boo again and were throwing things onto the stage. All the DJ could say was that they were there and that it wasn’t his fault, and even he began to look pissed.

After about an hour now between acts, a female MC whose name I unfortunately cannot remember (Psalm One) came out and did a song, hyped Mos Def for about 10 minutes then left the stage. Another ten minutes pass, and then a recording of Mos’ voice comes over the speakers and everyone goes nuts. Unfortunately, this recording also lasts several minutes which is longer than the crowd is willing to wait at this point. Mos finally comes out, wearing the DOOM mask and performing ‘Accordion’ off of Madvillainy. By far, this was the high point of the night as Mos continued to do a couple of songs from throughout MF’s career. After about 20 minutes, he took the mask off and proceeded to do tracks of his own which went over very well. The only problem was that it’s about 12:45 now, and everyone is either tired, drunk, or hungover from being drunk from when things were supposed to start at around 9 or so. Regardless, Mos put on a very good set with his own highlights being ‘Supermagic’, ‘Quiet Dog’, and ‘The Embassy’. Then, at the end of his set, he put the mask back on and began to do ‘All Caps’. About halfway through, DOOM comes out to finish the track and Mos leaves. Within minutes, it is apparent that even if this is the real Daniel Dumille, he is lip-syncing. I tried to leave early, but apparently just after I left he finished anyway, after about half an hour.

His “performance” isn’t worth talking about, but it makes you think about his persona. Obviously, the delays are a horrible thing to put an audience of your fans through, and it happens all too often in hip hop. However, the fact that DOOM was lip-syncing doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t. His character is built on a popular idea that he could be anyone, and that he more represents an idea, which is one of the more captivating stories in indie rap. Also, I saw him at the Pitchfork festival this past summer, where he did the exact same thing, only for about an hour. I know I should have learned my lesson, but the truth is that, on record, he is probably my favorite emcee. Now, of course I will not ever pay to see him live again and I think that this is where the problem with the DOOM character becomes apparent. Charging people to wait for 6-7 hours for you to play for 30 minutes, actually rapping or not,  is not acceptable and at some point his reputation will suffer because of it. But for now, people are still willing to shell out because of the mystery surrounding him and his sheer skill on record. I, though, won’t be one of them.

Paul Bulow

DOOM’s Myspace
Mos Def’s Myspace
Psalm One’s Myspace
Mike Relm’s Myspace
Qwel’s Myspace
BBU’s Myspace