A few of us Killahbeez heads were invited by Livenation to check out the N.E.R.D. and Common concert, which is dubbed as “Seeing The Invincible Sounds of Summer Tour”. The tour name combines both N.E.R.D.’s album name, Seeing Sounds, along with Common’s upcoming album, The Invincible Summer. The tour stop in Vancouver was the 5th stop for these guys with 13 additional dates left, so be sure to check out www.livenation.com for information on the tour.

The night started off with one of Canada’s best DJs and we’ve posted about homeboy a few times here on Killahbeez, DJ Pump. He warmed the crowd up with some classic hip hop, some new joints like “Jockin’ Jay-Z”, “Swagger Like Us” as well as educating the crowd with samples like Aretha Franklin’s “One Step Ahead” and showing the crowd where “A Millie” really came from. I’ve said this numerous times, but he’s truly one of the most versatile DJs I’ve heard in a minute and can rock any kind of party. Check out his MySpace page for a list of upcoming shows, www.myspace.com/djpump.

Now onto N.E.R.D. these dudes hit the stage around 7pm, when they came out the crowd went bananas and Pharrell acknowledged the cheers by going crazy himself and jumping straight into “Anti Matter”, which easily is one of my favorite tracks off of the latest album, Seeing Sounds. The guitar riffs and drums for the track sounded pretty damn fantastic in the venue and had me head bobbin’, nearly forgetting that I was there to take photos. So dope it had your boy losing focus for a second. A little disappointment though started to set in as I noticed that Chad Hugo wasn’t there and this marks the third straight time (he wasn’t at the Glow In the Dark and Pemberton Festival) that he wasn’t here, which could possibly mean he has difficulties coming across the Canadian border. It was up to Pharrell and fellow member Shae to hold things down and that they did as they kept their frenetic pace throughout the set. Going from “Anti Matter” to “Brain” to “Killjoy”. As one of my friends in attendance said, “I love how Pharrell performs throwing his arms wildly and just rockin’ out his shit”.

There was lot of interaction between the crowd and Pharrell, at one point Pharrell pulls up a kid onto the stage and it was clearly visible that the kid was in shock that he was up on stage with N.E.R.D., pretty cool moment. The set continued with “Maybe” followed by “Sooner or Later”, “You Know What”, “Rockstar”. At this point the crowd seems to be mellowing out, not so much the fans in the front as they were still wildin’, but the peoples in the back and side of the park were definitely on the mellower side. This lead to Pharrell telling the crowd “We’re here to lose our muthafucking minds, otherwise we’re wasting our time. If you’re too cool then get the fuck out”. I thought that was hilarious and he got a good laugh out of the crowd as well. N.E.R.D. went on to finish their set with “Spaz”, “Lapdance” and “Everyone Nose”. But wait they still weren’t done, they then went into a medley of tracks such as “Drop It Like Its Hot”, P’s verse of course, “She Wants to Move” and then dropping a sick live remix by playing The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army”, while both Shae and Pharrell did their verses for “Everyone Nose”.

I have the official set list that was taped to the stage, but N.E.R.D., definitely changed it up as a few of the songs were moved around and the medley they had originally planned seemed to have completely changed last second.

Next up, Common.

There were some worried faces amongst the crowd as word had gotten out that there was a hard curfew time of 10pm for the park and the stage setup time for Common was unexpectedly long. But as the clock hit shortly after 9pm, the show began with an opening skit. The stage itself was setup as a club, with a bar, along with stools, dj booth, etc. Enter DJ Dummy and the rest of the band members, shortly thereafter Common busts his way onto the stage and starts the show off with “Announcement”, which is the second single from the upcoming album, The Invincible Sound, and straight into another new song called “Inhale”. Common stops for a second for another quick skit, it was clear he wasn’t here to just rap for us; he was here to entertain the fans. As the skit ended it lead into the song “Go” which quickly turned into the track “Sex For Sugar”, another new track off of the upcoming album. At this point I was relief to hear some of these new tracks as I have to admit I was a bit worried that his whole upcoming album would follow the path of “U.M.C”, which I’m definitely not a fan of and a lot of Common fans can agree that that jam is not one of his best. As “Sex For Sugar” ended he went into another skit, in total there were 4 skits for the whole show. He had also pulled a lucky female audience member up onto the stage. He would do another new song, “Punch Love”, before going into “Come Close” and one of my favorite hip-hop songs ever, “I Used To Love H.E.R.”

I knew the aforementioned song, “U.M.C (Universal Mind Control)”, would eventually be played and wasn’t really looking forward to it, but you know what. Common killed it, the live drum tracks on this song was sick, had me head bobbin’ for sure and that wasn’t expected so that had me amped.

Common did a great job at keeping the energy going during his set, considering he was on his own for the most part, except for a few tracks where Pharrell came out to perform along side Common. As some may know Kanye West isn’t producing the majority of Common’s upcoming album as he did on Common’s previous work. Pharrell has taken over the majority of production duties on this new album, hence the different sound.

He would go through an abundance of tracks such as Talib Kweli’s “Get ‘Em High” (his verse), “Drive Me Wild”, “I Want You”, “Be”, “Make My Day”, “The Food”, “The People”, “The Corners”, “The Light” and finishing off with a new song “Gladiator”.

But something crazy happened in between the tracks “The Corners” and “The Light” and for sure any true hip-hop head would have picked it up right away. The band behind Common started playing one of the most recognizable beat in hip-hop and Common continued the process by doing the first verse and that’s when I had a huge smile on my face. He was doing Nas’s song “NY State of Mind” and customized it for Vancouver, by replacing “NY” with “BC”, very impressive indeed.

I have to say this was a great hip-hop concert and the outdoor venue, Malkin Bowl, was excellent in terms of sound and thankfully the Vancouver weather held-up and it was sunny the whole day. I actually have never seen either Common or N.E.R.D. live before and definitely have to say that both impressed me. I had high expectations for Common as I have grown up listening to all of his stuff, you know before he dropped the “Sense” from his name. So if this tour rolls through your city I definitely have to recommend that you go and check it out.

Here are the remaining tour dates:

September 18 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo
September 19 - Eugene, OR @ Cuthbert Amphitheater
September 20 - Berkeley, CA @ Berkeley Community Theatre
September 21 - Las Vegas, NV @ House Of Blues
September 23 - Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium
September 27 - Chicago, IL @ House Of Blues
September 29 - Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
October 1 - Boston, MA @ Orpheum Theatre
October 2 - Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
October 4 - New York, NY @ Roseland Ballroom
October 8 - Atlanta, GA @ The Tabernacle
October 9 - Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Cafe
October 10 - Miami Beach, FL @ Fillmore

Hit up Livenation for more information on tickets, venues and dates: www.livenation.com

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