{"id":360,"date":"2006-11-21T12:00:06","date_gmt":"2006-11-21T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/?p=360"},"modified":"2006-12-06T22:04:29","modified_gmt":"2006-12-06T21:04:29","slug":"ireallylovemusic-vs-akira-the-don-the-live-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/?p=360","title":{"rendered":"ireallylovemusic vs akira the don (the live session)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>       <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">so after many years of following the trials and  tribulations of adam aka <STRONG>akira the don<\/STRONG>, having appeared in his  first animated video, being the first to organise an online interview with him  as a solo artist, etc etc last night the 2 of us finally met.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">when the tour dates were announced i have to admit  letting my jaw drop when i spotted <EM>bristol academy nov 20th. <\/EM>i mean i  knew that adam had an audience, i had heard of the spread of his infamous  mixtapes, but damn the academy holds 1600 people, my last adventures to this  place were to see <STRONG>sisters of mercy<\/STRONG> (dreadful &#8211; i walked out),  <STRONG>suede<\/STRONG> (the penultimate tour), and the fantastic  <STRONG>gorillaz<\/STRONG> show, so just how would adam manage with such a vast  space.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"> am i really out of touch that much and there is  that kind of demand for his rock-n-pop sanctioned hip hop.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">the truthful answer is, unfortunately, no.  <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">the gig was situated in the much more suitable bar  upstairs (known as academy 2 apparently). i prefer gigs like this, eyeball  contact and rumbling sonics.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">however, before the beat began there was the small  issue of saying hello.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">i should state, that i&nbsp;rarely get nervous when  meeting new people, i am too old and according to the bands guitarist, jeremy,  moody (ha!), to get all tongue tied, but shaking hands with adam and saying  <EM>&#8216;long time no see&#8217;<\/EM> will probably go down in history as one of the most  stupid things i&#8217;ve ever said. adam looked as confused as i very quickly became  somewhat concerned about the loss of my own mental ability, but later on  i&nbsp;realised that in some ways&nbsp;this is all part of the open heart  surgery that takes place on the mans blog, his ongoing exposure of the mechanics  of the music industry, meaning prior to the meeting of the palms, i felt as if i  knew him, and in some strange twisted&nbsp;bending of the virtual world, felt  connected to his love and pain. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">thankfully, a quick, <EM>lets go to the pub  <\/EM>dissipated the moment.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">drinks were bought amongst the black leathered up  rock fans, (<STRONG>motorhead<\/STRONG> were&nbsp;playing in&nbsp;a venue not  yards from the academy) and we chatted. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">covering all manner of things old and new, from the  current uk hip hop scene, ice cube vs public enemy,&nbsp;128 bitrates, even down  to choice of producers for the album, all of which proved that adam still loves  the music far more than most people who have been sucked into the major label  system and spat out at the other end should.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">when the time came, i ventured back to the venue  and the fun began.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">the set was controlled from the ubiquitous laptop,  with mary turner adding vocals and the odd keyboard part, and job threatening  guitar histrionics from jeremy <EM>&#8216;playlouder&#8217;<\/EM> allen and a backdrop on  which the blob character is projected in all manner of politically settings.  <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">the large budget productions funded by  interscope&nbsp;thankyou, sounded fantastic with the required volume.  <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">even with the added extras of feedback every time  adam tried to go beyond the much needed barrier, meaning that for the 45 minutes  he became like a caged animal, preventing him from wandering through the  audience as he apparently loves to.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">having seen a few live hip hop shows i can safely  say that this was the first in which i preferred the live versions over the  album, i smiled, i danced a little, and i laughed, and even shouted a strange  phrase&nbsp;out loud&nbsp;in a candyman 5 times situation (with reasons to be  revealed via the blog in a few days), with adam playing master of ceremonies for  all its worth.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">the <STRONG>akira the don<\/STRONG> persona comes  into another dimension when faced with a live audience, random madness, tracks  stopped midflow, and general rock-n-roll fun filled chaos highlighted when  <EM>son of king rebel<\/EM> (or jeremy in the real world) mounted the speaker  stack, to give it the full on guitar solo pose, albeit in a hunched form due to  the low ceiling.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">the albums classics, and a few&nbsp;extras  besides,&nbsp;were wheeled out, proving that the mans vocal skillz at matching  beats and noise to his multilayered rhymes is as solid as you&#8217;d expect, and from  discussions with tour manager, dan, getting better with each show (this is adams  first tour proper), meaning you really should <\/FONT><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">see  him now before the rest of the world catches up with the man.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">album of the year. <\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">gig of the year.<\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><EM>more detail<\/EM> : <A href=\"http:\/\/www.akirathedon.com\">here<\/A><\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\">and the story so far from <EM>ireallylovemusic<\/EM>  : &nbsp;<A href=\"http:\/\/www.ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/dance\/akira_the_complete.html\">the  complete akira the don set<\/A><\/FONT><\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/FONT>&nbsp;<\/DIV> <DIV><FONT face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><\/FONT>&nbsp;<\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>so after many years of following the trials and tribulations of adam aka akira the don, having appeared in his first animated video, being the first to organise an online interview with him as a solo artist, etc etc last night the 2 of us finally met. when the tour dates were announced i have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ireallylovemusic.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}