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is this design ugly?

TRICKY - RUMSEY PLAYFIELD - 7/7/00
let's play a game, shall we? it's called "how indie are you?"

1. would you be willing to stand in line in a crowded, overheated small area for forty-five minutes after the gate was supposed to open?

yes, that's quite an easy one. this seems to be par for the course at summerstage. besides, it's tricky: when he's good, he can be very good indeed. let's try another.

2. would you be willing to sit through an hour-and-a-half set by state of bengal which mixed drum 'n' bass, two-step, and traditional indian music?

i don't know about you, but i was. the set started off slowly, but got really good at the end. the fact that he brought an mc and a ragga singer with him helped immensely. next question, then.

3. would you also be willing to sit through readings of gory crime stories by chester himes and others by author luc sante?

it wasn't really that bad, actually. the crowd hated it though: they were razzing him, and clapping when he paused, thinking that he was done. it was so bad that, thankfully, he was aware enough to realize that this wasn't what the crowd was expecting -- even though it listed this on the schedule -- and cut short his second reading. i felt bad for him: he seemed a bit shaken by the size of the crowd. normally, this kind of thing, i'd imagine, is done in small coffeehouses in the village: tonight, there were over a thousand people staring at him. no one in the crowd was willing to believe it, but he is a very good author, and also a good sport. next one, then.

4. would you finally be willing to see tricky and pal dave courtney stand on stage and plug the trickster's new album? without the benefit of performing anything?

the fact that there were no instruments on the stage tipped me off that something strange was brewing. this was only confirmed when a summerstage organizer came out after the sante debacle and wanted to make sure the crowd knew that this was an evening of spoken word (they obviously did not).

when tricky and courtney came out, they joked, "we have no idea what we're going to say." actually, it wasn't a joke. they just kind of rambled on for less than a half-hour (!). admittedly, courtney was a funny guy, but still, the highlight of the evening was when, for whatever reason, tricky asked for a beatboxer out of the crowd. the kid came on stage, tricky regurgitated rhymes from his albums, and the kid upstaged both he and courtney.

what last night was, essentially, was an infomercial for tricky's latest album, product of the environment. an album, it should be mentioned, that ISN'T EVEN AVAILABLE IN THIS COUNTRY! it was as if he was a last minute fill-in; but he WASN'T, the schedule has been out for at least a month now, so he could've put something together. after he left the stage, everyone thought he was just joking again: he wasn't. a summerstage organizer came out and informed us that the show was over, to a chorus of "boo"s. tricky did reappear, saying that he didn't know he was supposed to be on for an hour. he looked for the beatbox kid again and then kicked his rhymes from "for real." it was half-hearted at best, and after some more booing, he finally left the stage for good. the summerstage volunteers at the exit gates, usually whores for donations, didn't have the heart to even ask. as we left, we reminded ourselves of the old saying, "you get what you pay for."