Last weekend I was fortunate enough to see all of these artists and I can tell you I was more than satisfied by Sunday night. The weekend began Thursday when I went to the Breslin Center to watch Nas rock a FREE show. Granted it didn’t feel free cause we had to sit through two shitty bands and a lot of presidential campaigning before I got to see him, but he did not disappoint. In fact Nas put on possibly a perfect performance. At first I figured Nas would only play newer stuff off his new album, and if I got one song off Illmatic it would have been worth it….well I got 7. It was incredible, I knew as soon as he said “Ya’ll want me to take it back in the day” where he was going and he started with “Halftime”. Every song off Illmatic except “The Genesis”, “One Time For Your Mind”, and “Memory Lane” was played. This had to be the highlight of the night….DJ Green Lantern was on the tables and the show was set up so Nas would spit one verse from pretty much every song. I must say I was in awe when they threw “Live At the Barbecue” on and Nas’ infamous first appearance was relived…shit gave me goosebumps. Anyway, he also played classics like: “Nas is Like”, “Got Yourself…”, “One Mic”, “Made You Look”, “Get Down”, and “If I Ruled the World”. Overall, I could not have asked for more. Most fans who are into only his newer work were probably disappointed, but I know there were some true heads in there feeling it.

Then Sunday night we went to Fillmore in Detroit to see N.E.R.D. and Common. N.E.R.D. came on first and started to move the crowd. They played everything I expected, and Pharrell was really into getting the fans up on stage at the end he got about 20 of the hottest girls on stage and played “She Wants to Move”. The girls were freaks and Pharrell was loving the attention. A few girls were taking their tops off and nipples were definitely exposed. Anyway after the last song he disappeared with the girls…Hmm lucky guy.

Then their was a brief intermission before Common, my favorite rapper took the stage. The setup was crazy weird, It was like a bar on stage and it was like they were making their own stage play in between songs….I must say even the drunkest people in the audience were not feeling this ploy. And then when he did start to spit he started with a few songs from Electric Circus (his worst album with Finding Forever a close 2nd) just cause Pharrell is on it. He was playing with a live band and they either weren’t very good or were purposely playing different versions of songs. For example, “I Used To Love H.E.R.” came on and I didn’t know it was on until he started spitting (probably heard the song over 1000 times and couldn’t recognize the beat…WTF). There were cool parts though including when he spit (Flawlessly) the first verse of Nas’ “New York State of Mind” substituting Detroit for New York. Then he did a freestyle for at least 5 mins about Detroit, which was tight, but overall I was not very satisfied.

Next concert is Murs and I must say I am more than excited. It is at the blind pig, and seriously you are like on stage with the rappers it is so small. When I saw Hiero and Souls of Mischief there we literally were right next to the performers and they were giving us beers and smoking blunts it was insane. I will try and take some pics this time.