A friend and I saw Saul Williams last night at Ram's Head On Stage in Annapolis. On Stage seats maybe 100 people at MOST. It's a dinner and a show kind of place so everyone is at tables and servers are coming back asking if you want drinks or appetizers through the whole show. For a performance as big as Saul Williams, this kinda makes things a little awkward for both performer and audience.

I felt bad for the opening act. They were great, but it took them until their second-to-last song to get people to get out of their fucking seats. We were at table 1. Front center stage. I could have reached out and untied Saul's shoe laces if I wanted to. When he came on, it was looking like it was going to be another sit-in, so between the first and second song, I conspired with the other people at my table that we would be the group that got everyone on their feet. They still didn't stand up until I did, but hopefully we made the band feel a little less like they were doing dinner theater :)

Saul actually made a comment along the lines of "Well this is awkward. Welcome to Ram's Head. I hope everyone is enjoying their appetizers. I'm Saul Williams and we'll be your entertainment for the evening." He was pretty funny about it. The friend I was with's girlfriend used to work for Ram's Head and she said that bands kind of get strong-armed into performing there. The owner of the club is partnered with a subsidiary of Ticketmaster, and they basically say "you can't play any of our other venues unless you also play Ram's Head On Stage." Kind of a shady tactic to get big names into a tiny little club and I feel sorry for the bands that get forced into it, but I can't tell you how glad I am that they do it, because last night was a fucking amazing experience.

The show itself was great. Saul Williams is a very powerful performer. They played several of my favorite songs and he did some poetry as well. Some of my favorites that I remember from the set list: Black Stacey ( www.youtube.com/watch ), Tr(n)igger ( www.youtube.com/watch ), Convict Colony, NiggyTardust, Scared Money, Banged and Blown Through ( www.youtube.com/watch ), and WTF! ( www.youtube.com/watch ). Toward the end of List of Demands ( www.youtube.com/watch ), this little girl who looked about 13 came on stage with a mic to do the "wah wah wah." After the song was over, he mentioned that when she originally recorded the "wah wah wah" for List of Demands, she was a lot smaller. He introduced her as his daughter and they did Sunday Bloody Sunday ( www.youtube.com/watch ) together. She wasn't the greatest singer on the planet, but she was having a fantastic time and he was very visibly proud to be sharing the stage with her. It was pretty fantastic. For the encore, Saul came out by himself and performed Coded Language ( www.youtube.com/watch ). If you've never heard it, you should.

Saul Williams had a lot of really powerful messages to convey. To name three:

Ignoring Race is Racism
Be Yourself
You are Music