PHOTOS: Common And The Roots
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 15, 2009 5:00PM
Usually we avoid corporate sponsored music events since they tend to be stacked with B-list acts, but when we heard Hennessy was bringing Common to a small South Loop club, and The Roots would be his backing band, we couldn't resist showing up. (Side story: We ran into ?uestlove in the alley pre-show and made sure to let him know that, in our opinion, he's the Twitter master. The dude's tweets alone make Late Night with Jimmy Fallon worth watching.) Opening act Elevator Fight warmed the crowd up with some middle of the road rock sung by Zoë Kravitz, the daughter of Lisa Bonet and Lenny Kravitz. It was the kind of act that usually causes us to avoid these events, but once The Roots hit the stage for a solo set the dull tghrob that preceded them washed away in a burst of bliss. And once Common hit the stage to join them for his own set? It was all over. The room erupted and the assembled coterie of musicians onstage took that energy and threw it right back out to the people. We were on such a high we even found ourselves singing along to Heavy D when he suddenly appeared onstage and we hated his tunes back in the day! It was just a big ol' party, with ace talent packed into a small room giving it their all.
The only downside to the whole evening? We were spoiled. Now we want to see The Roots play every night, in person, in a small club, for hours and hours and hours.