Hiphop Show Loses Headliner
…and audience’s goodwill.
Posted by: Aaron Scott and Anne Adams on Jun 07, 2011 at 11:00AM
4 Comments
THE SETUP
Yesterday, Culturephile recommended that you catch hiphop legend Aceyalone, and asked why people in Portland seem so hiphop-show shy. Fourteen hours later, we had an answer.
Rapper Aceyalone’s show at The Crown Room drew a decent turnout—especially for a Monday night. Hippies, hipsters, and homies mingled peacefully as an R&B act warmed up the crowd, starting late and playing long. Oh well; so far, s’all good.
When the first rapper finally hit the stage, headliner Aceyalone emerged at the front of the crowd, energetically dancing and essentially hyping the little-known spitter. Then another rapper who wasn’t Acey took the stage. And another. And another. Even the show’s host wedged in a few of his own numbers while DJ’s were changing guard. Though each act dropped Acey’s name to drum up applause, none seemed particularly respectful of his time—or the fact that, past a certain point, he was no longer visible in the room. The night’s de facto headliner, beatific bay-area hipster Rashaan Ahmad, earned a roomful of nods and energetic crowd participation. But by the time he finished it was at least half past 12, and there was still one more opener to go.
THE FALLOUT
Aceyalone, the self-proclaimed “golden goose,” must have skipped out at around 1. “If I were him, by 1 a.m. I’m sure I’d be thinking ‘Well, you obviously don’t need me here,’” commented longtime local rock musician Denver Warner, and several have chimed in agreement. Indeed, musicians and fans from all concert scenes can commiserate with the situation: a popular act is dangled like a carrot in front of a waning crowd, while promoters try to drag out the downtime to boost bar sales or hype no-name support acts.
This concertgoer would have preferred to pay a $10–15 ticket price for a well-paced show, rather than an (un-refunded) $5 to spend the whole evening getting slowly drained like a sugar beet. As Aceyalone might’ve said if he’d stuck around: “Thanks, but no thanks. Pranks, or no pranks. I’m’a let them know they can’t rank.”
BETTER BETS
In the future, Culturephile will put better money on juggernauts like Soul’d Out, or count on volunteer love-fests like PDX Pop Now to come through.
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Or, in other words, just never attend anything promoted by Leigh Feldman or which happens at The Crown Room. What a rip off!
The article headlines and summaries from the email update make it seems as if Aceyalone’s at fault, whereas the article seems to make the distinction he’s not:
*"LA Rapper Goes AWOL" from the email subject
*"MC No-Show" from the link
*"LA rapper Aceyalone skipped out"
The article clearly states he was there and it was the promoters who didn’t handle it correctly.
I personally like Aceyalone and had no idea he was in town, so in reading just the email I definitely thought he was the one at fault. Too often the feed links and summaries to articles are misleading (and often an afterthought), which is totally true in this case.
the last sentence in the last comment was meant as an observation of “blogs” in general, with the example being for this article on this particular blog. defintely not making a blanket statement about the Portland Monthly blog/webzine, which I think is quite polished and well done :)
Thanks for your comments, Martin.
Though I take your point, it’s worth noting that neither the headline nor the blog explicitly assigns blame to the promoters or to the rapper. Aceyalone DID disappear, and as far as the promoters were concerned, that was “without leave.” He WAS “AWOL.” That said, of course there was more to the story, as indicated in this article.
I hope this incident can spearhead a discussion between promoters, talent, and fans that will improve future show experiences. How long is too long to wait? How many openers are too many? How heavily can you trade on your headliner’s good name, without looking out for his/her well-being?