Fractionals

So the most purely fun show I've seen in quite a while has been our boy Cadence Weapon (and by "our" I mean Canada) at the E-Bar tonight. I got there early, he'd forgotten to put me on the guest list but the door guy wasn't an asshole and let me go track him down and he fixed things up. Spent the interval before his set talking about music, of course, and if nothing else convinces you the guy is on the right level, when I mentioned "Tell Me When To Go" he revealed he was making his DJ (Weez-L, pretty awesome in his own right, although a bit too enamored of Kool Keith) play it just before he hit the stage. So we're agreed the song is awesome.

Anyway, Rollie is pretty incredibly cool/nice/funny in person, and when he gets up on stage, well, I stand by what I said about his album deftly taking the best bits of both mainstream and underground rap without falling prey to pretty much any of their weaknesses, but dude can party live. Favourite moment was either when he had the DJ play the instrumental to Kraftwerk's "The Robots" as he speedrapped almost all of "Sharks" before playing the song "properly" (he also introed one of his songs by playing the instrumental of Interpol's "Roland" and singing his own version for a verse), or the line in one of his new songs ("House Music") about the CBC taping him only from the waist up. I guess you need some context on Cadence Weapon, the CBC and Ed Sullivan to find that as hilariously apt as I did, but trust me: It was gold. Anyway, his was just a short set opening for some band called We're Marching On that I didn't stay for because a. I've been sick the last couple of days b. at that point I had (and still have) a massive headache from standing to close to one of the speakers, although the music was fantastic enough I totally don't regret it c. they were apparently dancepunk. But Cadence Weapon were fantastic - Rollie's a fuckin' dynamo when he's up there, and there were so many great moments that at the time I thought "man, I'm totally going to mention this", but there were so many I've forgotten them all. Stuff like his surprise at the mass crowd approval when he announced he was going to play "Oliver Square", his heartfelt pleas for us to dance (complete not annoying, unlike when most acts do it) and his 'I'll high-five anyone in the front row policy'. Honestly, between that and the man's way with a thumbs-up, I was occasionally remembered of Andrew WK (and whatever else you want to say about Mr. WK, he burns it down live).

Anyway, great show, nice guy, I told him he has fans in Houston (and Kate/Brad/whoever, you need to see him; tour dates are here, and TO people should probably note he's playing with Hot Chip on the 15 at Lee's, which I imagine would be an incredible show. I won't stand so close to the speakers next time, but I'll definitely be catching him live whenever I get a chance to from now on.

Setlist:
Lifesaver
Black Hand
Sharks
Get In The Chair, Girl
Grim Fandango
Limited Edition
Oliver Square
House Music
Everyone Is Selling Me Something