ZION I : LIVE IN SANTA CRUZ
May 31st 2008, Zion I performed at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, California. I was in the building for this one. After enjoying some sushi over in Campbell at Michi’s Sushi, I finally decided to take the trip over the hill into Santa Cruz. I arrived at The Catalyst at around 11:45pm.
I missed almost all the opening acts but did catch the end of the Pep Love show. He put it down for the Hieroglyphics family. I also saw the Bayliens around there in the crowd, their energetic shows are dope, too bad I missed them. I’ll catch them June 29th at the Voodoo Lounge in downtown San Jose.
The venue seemed to be a little more than half full as I took a walk around. Now remember, this was a 16 and over event, but never in my life had I seen so many little kids smoking cigarettes. It was like a junior high dance sponsored by Marlboro. But this is all they can get into, so I can’t hate. I just made sure those little shits stayed out of my way as I headed over to the 21 and over bar area, holla.
Around 12:30am, Zion I took the stage. Amplive started off by playing various beats on his drum machine. He is a beat making beast. After that, they went into all their classics, including one of my favorite songs “Bird’s Eye View” to which they showed pictures of various Hip Hop emcees on the big screen behind them.
They also performed tracks off the Heroes In The City of Dope album, which is the duo album with The Grouch of Living Legends. Unfortunately, Grouch wasn’t scheduled to be at this portion of the Freshcoast Tour. So in his replacement they had an emcee named Duece rap his own verses for The Grouch’s parts. I felt that this was not needed. The audience couldn’t even understand Duece and it took away some of the energy within the show.
Also, there was some douche bag in the upper 21 and over rows who was shit-faced out of his mind. He threw his shirt on stage and continued to scream at Zion to wear his t-shirt. Finally, towards the end of the show, Zion said “I’m gonna wear this shirt or else this muhfucka won’t shut up.” Zion put the shirt on and it looked like some hyphy bullshit you find at Shirtique in Eastridge mall. Message to that loud mouth, if you ever read this sir, you are an asshole.
Moving on, Zion I performed the track they did with the late great Mac Dre. Although this track was made after Mac Dre’s death and used old Dre vocals, it is still a dope track and it got the crowd rowdy. One white boy in the front row was going into seizures doing thizz facing and wilding out, that was funny. Mac Dre must be laughing in his grave.
To close the show Zion had Amplive come from behind the beat machine to the front of the stage to accompany him while he freestyled. Amp brought along with him his Playstation Portable. And leave it to Amp, he began making beats for the freestyle session on the actual PSP! That is what I have a picture of up above.
Overall, it was a good show and it was nice to party in a city that isn’t overrun by bitch ass cops. This is just one of my many shows that I will continue to post on here.
One.