The Roots – Meltdown Festival, London, 13/06/09

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I hardly know where to start in writing up the opening concert of this year’s Meltdown. It featured a 91-year-old saxophonist, a contribution from free jazz legend Ornette Coleman and a silly cameo from ‘Flutebox’, a beatboxing flautist who looked like he’d been snapped up from America’s Got Talent. This all took place on headliners The Roots’ watch, who put on the longest hip-hop set I’ve ever seen. It was—among other things—pulsating, tight, overblown, electric and flabby. The band themselves clearly had a whale of a time; as Black Thought succinctly put it, we were watching ‘once in a lifetime shit’.
Now, believing what a rapper says about himself is something of a mug’s game, but Black Thought may have had a point. This was a fusion of past and present, a lineup unlikely to be repeated. The show shifted from jazz to hip-hop (and back again, then back again) and through afrobeat to fuzzed out heavy funk. It was perhaps the sense of occasion which blew The Roots’ set up to a staggering two and a half hours—double what I would term risky for a rap group.

Proceedings got off to a sedate start with Andy Hamilton’s trio. Ambling onstage dressed like the man from Del Monte, Hamilton’s playing was rich and lyrical. Accompanied by Nana Tsiboe (percussion) and Tim Amann (piano), the musicians obviously had a fine understanding. And, while an old old man who needs to have a sit down now and then may not be a support act The Roots would usually stick onstage, Hamilton is a terrific musician and it’s a shame that he found himself playing to a half full, chattering auditorium.

This brought us onto The Roots’ ambitious slot. Black Thought and Questlove opened up by ripping through some scintillating hip hop covers. Wu-tang, Run DMC and Eric B and Rakim’s songs felt akin to old jazz standards, even if covering rap classics put Black Thought in the faintly ridiculous position of having to refer to himself as Inspectah Deck, Method Man, Ghostface Killah, GZA and Rakim, all in the space of five minutes. From there, and with a full band assembled, they dipped into their impressive back catalogue.

It’s at around the half hour mark that hip hop concerts can start to flag, and a seated show in the Royal Festival Hall throws up more logistical challenges than most. How do you get around the fact that an all ages crowd is sitting down, a fair few would be at their first rap gig (and may not be engaged by all of that shouting), and rap shows can generally be repetitive? The Roots solved these problems by getting everybody on their feet, after which Black Thought vacated the stage, and left the band to inject variety with a full on instrumental freakout.

I wouldn’t exactly say that at this point things fell apart, but it seemed to go on forever. At 20 minutes, the sunny ‘Mellow My Man’ was stretched beyond breaking point and the drum battle between Questlove and F Knuckles—a regular feature of The Roots’ shows—went on. And on. With three saxophonists still set for solo spots it was as if The Roots wanted to bake the cake, then take the cake and eat it too.

It would, however, be churlish to complain when the highlights of this concert were so memorable. Ornette Coleman started out wearing the uneasy look of a man who has turned up without his saxophone, before finding one and launching into two contributions which left me smiling from ear to ear. Solos from David Murray, Hamilton and stellar vocals from Black Thought made ‘You Got Me’ magnificent, and the closing cover of Kool G Rap and DJ Polo’s ‘Men at Work’ saw The Roots getting back to thrilling basics. It was all the better for it.

I left the South Bank feeling absolutely drained; as an experiment in doing everything all at the same time, it was only partially successful. But you can’t hope to please all of the people all the time, and if The Roots got a bit carried away now and then, who cares? They got Meltdown off to a cracking start.