Kool Keith/Facebook
Last night's Kool Keith concert at the Riverwest Public House was cut short—real short—by the police. According to multiple accounts, police stopped the rapper's performance shortly after he took stage around 12:30 a.m.
"He was in the middle of his *third* song when someone whispered in his ear, a cop got on the mic and told everyone that they thought it might be over capacity (the place was half empty), and that everyone was going to have to go outside, be counted, and then they'd let us back in," one attendee recounted. "But that didn't happen, they just shut it down."
By all available fan accounts, the show was orderly, and if the venue was past capacity, most people hadn't noticed before the police arrived. "The bar was not packed; everyone was having a great time," one concertgoer wrote on Facebook.
"There was plenty of space in the back, and the situation didn't look obviously dangerous," another wrote. "To be fair, I thought the officers were polite, even though I think it was completely unnecessary to shut the show down."
One attendee saw the bright side. "Silver lining, he at least got through 'Blue Flowers' and 'Give the Drummer Some' before it got shut down," he told me.
For his part, Kool Keith didn't seem too discouraged by the experience. "Want to thank the staff @RWPublicHouse for your hospitality," he tweeted this morning. "lets plan another location in the future."
