Photo credit: Betty Koenig/Shepherd Express
While we tend to pore over each new Summerfest lineup with an eye towards the unexpected, the Big Gig mostly tends to stick to tried-and-true usual suspects wherever possible. Yet if many of the repeat performers seem to be there just to take up space on the schedule, it’s not hard to understand why The Roots have long been something of a Summerfest staple, even if they don’t play every single year. As the hardest-working band in hip-hop, they’ll work a crowd just about anywhere, anytime, but they also strike the same balance between broad accessibility and musical credibility that the festival itself strives for (and often falls short of). Thankfully though, their road-honed skills and laidback vibe also make them a reliable choice for attendees too, even if their latest return to Milwaukee’s lakefront possessed a few uncharacteristic weak spots.
After an appearance from Milwaukee’s own New Age Narcissism, pretty much the ideal local outfit to occupy this particular lead-in slot, and following this year’s seemingly never-ending fireworks display—seriously, no one aside from small children and those tripping on mushrooms have time for that—an awkwardly truncated sample of “Act Won” announced the band’s arrival. The crowd, respectable but not exactly large, especially by holiday weekend standards, greeted the legendary Philly crew like old friends as they launched into a set that skewed towards the funkier and more soulful aspects of their sound, as opposed the more straight-up boom-bap, while also reaching well beyond their own deep discography. That was exemplified early on by a fun rendition of “I Know You Got Soul” that was more James Brown than Eric B. & Rakim but it later took the evening to some rather weird places.
For a time after they again focused on their own material, and really overall there were plenty of prime examples to be had, such as “Proceed” from their 1995 sophomore release Do You Want More?!!!??! or “Act Too (The Love of My Life)” off of their turn-of-the-millennium classic Things Fall Apart, but the covers and quotations seemed to distract more and more as the show wore on. Some of the departures made perfect sense, like when it came time for beatbox player Jeremy Ellis’ solo and he used the opportunity for a ribcage-rattling workout of Prince’s most classic hits. Others were just confusing, like a meandering and apparently unrehearsed medley of seemingly random songs, among them such disparate titles as “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Uptown Top Ranking.” They may be familiar faces at Summerfest, but at least The Roots are still full of surprises.
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