Fresno Famous

When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to be a rapper.

My brother bought the Beastie Boys' "License to Ill" and it was on repeat for a long while. Even though I had no idea what it was exactly, I wanted to do THAT, with the rythmes and whatnot.

The way things ended up, someone introduced me to the Misfits and Motorhead and Asian Man Records and I never followed up on the hip-hop thing. But there's this part of me ...

This is the context for my review of MURS, who played Friday night at Starline on the Road to Paid Dues Tour with AB-Soul, Tabi Bonney and Whole Wheat Bread. 

In a nutshell: Damn fine, wild-ass show. The crowd was full (I'd say close to a sell out) and bouncing. It was hot and sweaty on the dancefloor, but in a totally good way. They managed to get sound just right so that bass kicked without sending everything into a wall of fuzz. 

Whole Wheat Bread started off the show with what they call "dirty South punk rock." It was super good melodic punk with hip-hop overtones and was well recieved. They even got a circle pit happening. Totally my style. I bought the CD. 

Ab-Soul and Tabi Bonney (and DJ Foundation on the 1s and 2s) kept the crowd in it, but you knew who everyone was there to see as soon as MURS hit the stage. Truthfully, I bought tickets mostly based off his performance at Rock the Bells a few years back, and even then it was not so much the music that caught me, but the way he handled himself on stafe. Again, he owned the crowd here, had people rapping along, people hopping up and down arms in the air. He went through all his hits (more than a few of which I knew, oddly enough), before bringing Whole Wheat Bread back on stage for an encore of sorts, where they ripped through covers of "It Takes Two," "Bust A Move," and "Walk Like an Egyptian."  

All in all, this was a show that would have made Rick Rubin smile. The back-in-the-day Rick Rubin, not the producing-Josh-Grobin one. 

On a side note: Shows like this make me realize the potential crowds that aren't coming out normally. The place was packed, and yet I probably saw a dozen or less people I recognized. That's a good thing in the context of this particular show. Looking at the entirety of the Fresno music scene, I have to wonder where these people are hiding.