Photos: Brother Ali and Fashawn
I was a little worried when the show started. The Peel was empty. The opening group was a rap cliche (“Yo yo yo, where the bitches at?”) with a DJ who looked like the kids I went to Hebrew school with seems to spend more time smoking blunts than using this old Dell Latitude.
I began to wonder if I had the wrong idea of Rhymesayers, but after a break Brother Ali came out an introduced this 21-year-old phenom named Fashawn. The crowd swelled and moved to the stage and Fashawn proceeded to kill it. Lyrical, hard-working, honest, and brilliant.
Then Brother Ali took over the stage. He’s a self-described fat, bald, bearded, albino, Muslim rapper, but he transcended all those label. He was able to get the crowd moving like I’ve never seen in Asheville before, “There is not a concert. At a concert, there is a performer, an actor up here on stage. Out there is the audience and we don’t interact. But this isn’t that. This is a party and I came here to fucking party.”
I left around midnight, but the party was still going strong.
More photos after the jump…
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The Dodos last migration to AVL was a year ago March where they played a pretty full Harvest in-store. This year they got upgraded to The Grey Eagle and the show was packed. It’s nice to see great bands gain a local audience that quickly. Yeah, we <3 our town like that.
First up was the Durham band of brothers, Megafaun. Brothers Brad and Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund used to be in a band with Justin Vernon (you know, that Bon Iver dude). Now that Bon Iver has gone on hiatus, we hope that Megafaun gets the spotlight. They’ve got awesome harmonies reminiscent of Fleet Foxes and a dynamic live presence often jumping into the crowd to finish their songs. I preferred the live show to the record and even then preferred when they left the electronics out of it.
Indie pop New Zealanders, The Ruby Suns, were up second and they gave me a good opportunity to get another PBR and some delicious bread pudding from Twin Cousins.
The crowd swelled and welcomed The Dodos. It was hard to get anywhere near the front, but standing on our toes on a chair in the back, we could see that they expanded from a minimalist two-piece to a stage busting three-piece with that addition of a second percussionist, Keaton Snyder. There is a complete lack of pretension with these guys who were just rocking the t-shirts and hoodies and I mean rocking. High energy, killer show. See them next time when I’m sure they’ll be headlining at The Orange Peel.
