Saturday November 3rd, 2007 World Cafe Live played host to Lyrics Born on his current tour with Rue Melo as the opener. I'm going to be frank here and say that I left for the show a little bit late thinking that it would get underway late. Normally when you go to a show, the artist sits in the back drinking one more drink/shooting one more spot of dope/snorting one more line off the hooker's boobs, and in my old age I'm sick of standing around listening to the ever increasingly drunk crowd gettin ornery. I made a mistake. I walked in the door at 9:15 PM and the show was over half over. I missed Rue Melo and exactly half of Lyrics Born set. I walked in when he was playing "2 Hot 2 Cold."
Lyrics' band is tight. They are very tight. The sound at World Cafe is the best in the city. Also tight. His band is a guitarist, bassist, keyboard player and a drummer a long with his ever-present wife and vocalist Joyo Velarde. The second song I saw was Hot 2 Def and this is the "band intro" track. Everyone got their 15 minutes of fame here and it was well deserved. Not a single instrumentalist on stage was weak but most impressive of all was the bass player. Whoever he is, and I wish I knew who he was, is an amazing player AND a showman. A true entertainer.
Lyrics ran through only his most popular tunes (from what I saw) and followed "Hot 2 Def" with ultra-funky crowd pleaser "Callin Out." Joyo's lead vocal chops get a chance to really sore on that hook and the whole crowd was singing along (or as best a bunch of poor singin' folk can muster.) Another funk master was next with "Changed My Mind." I believe it was in this song that LB decided to call out a table of people sitting off to his right of the stage for just sitting there. Excellent entertainer AND a ball buster. I like the way this guy rolls. He closed out the set with what might be one of his "hardest" tunes "Bad Dreams."
Short walk off...bring on the encore.
"Love Me So Bad" is a duet. LB and Joyo have an "argument" during this song about the complexities of their relationship. This is one of my favorite songs to see live as they really show the chemistry between them as musicians AND lovers. The song peaks with them in each others faces singing/rapping their points simultaneously. The finale is "Do Dat There" and is LBs chance to show off his nimble flow. The tempo of the song appears to bounce up and down but it grows ever closer to mind
numbingly fast. Which is where it ends; with Lyrics Born rapping faster than an auctioneer on Meth and Crack. It was so fast I went back in time and thought I was Joey Lawrence: "WHOAA!"Kinda upset I missed Rue Melo, her voice reminds me of early Esthero. I'll watch for her return to the Philthy.
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