Feel the
Decatur-ness -- my experiences in Decatur, IL
- click on pictures to enlarge
An alarm sounds...........the day I've
been waiting for has finally arrived. Its 5:30 am, August 5th,
2000. Today is the day I see, and meet, P.m. Dawn for the
first time. It was a long and torturous four hour drive for my
friend Jawan and I to Decatur, but we knew it would all be worth
it. We went into this anxious to see Pm perform and hopefully
get some autographs before the show....but nothing could prepare us
for what was about to happen.
12:30 pm we arrive in Decatur. I
give Prince Be a ring on his cell phone letting him know we've
arrived. But they were a half hour away yet ( out of a 16 hour
drive ). After hangin' out in their hotel lobby, impatiently, we
spot a man with a Pm Dawn t-shirt on approaching us......"Are you
Brian?" he asked with a THICK british accent. "Be and
JC are taking a break from the long ride, but you can come hang with
us til they're ready." Damn! So we spent about an
hour hanging out with Jamie their stage manager and Mike their sound
man.
There's a knock at the hotel room door,
and before my heart could even take a beat, Prince Be walks in the
room, says what's up and shakes our hands. Later JC came in too,
and we spent most of the day just bulshittin with P.m. Dawn. I
don't know of any other band that would treat their fans to an
experience like this.
Damn....rain delay.....looks like their
only gonna do one set. As long as we get to see the show, who
cares. We accompanied Be, JC, Mike, and Jamie, along with some
of Be and JC's cousins, with them in their courtesy vehicles to the
show. We watch from the very front of the stage as Be and JC do
their sound check. But one of the best days of my life is about
to get even better.......
Right before the show starts, Jawan and I
are behind the stage just waitin for the show to start when Be shouts
to us, "I want you guys to have a seat on the stage for the
show...." WHAT??? Damn, I can't breath....alright, for real
now, I can't breath....So we climb up on stage and sit off to the
right-hand side in back and prepare for the performance of a lifetime.
Jamie,
the stage manager comes out to the stage and revs up the crowd to
cheer on the group to the stage. Prince Be and JC rush up on
stage while rapping 'Gotta Be...Movin' On Up.' The bass was
pumpin', the crowd was jumpin', and Be and JC knew how to rock a
crowd. Never before have I seen a goup perform with more life
and energy. JC couldn't hold still and danced so hard and
couldn't believe it. The chemistry that these boys had can only
come from brothers. They had just as much fun on stage as the
crowd did watching and they, and I, were loving every second of
it.
The
track list of this show was like a smorgusborg of reminicent
classics. From 'Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine' to 'I Had
No Right' they sang their hearts out and the people couldn't get
enough. Not only did Pm Dawn put on an excellent show, but they
brought along a friend to perform. His name is the Sploogitive
aka Dr. Giggles and he got the crowd pumped. He performed a rap
called 'Big Women' to the tune of 'Whoomp there it Is' and the crowd
was dancin' mad. It turns out the Splooge is actually a cousin
of Be and JC's (with an album of his own in the works. But Pm
didn't leave the stage while The Splooge rocked the mic. Low and
behold, behind the turntables was Prince Be scratchin on the
turntables and JC backin up on vocals.
After
the Splooge left the stage, Prince Be and JC decided to entertain the
crowd by playin some old records. Believe it or not, they had
the crowd dancin and singin' to the old 'Muppets Show' song!! It
was hilarious but the fun didn't stop there. The next record to
play......Michael Jackson's 'Don't Stop Till You Get Enough.' Be
busts out singin' as he puts on a flashy Michael Jackson esk jacket.
After about the third song or so, I'm
deep into the vibe and Be turns to me from in front and says,
"Come on out here Brian, I wanna introduce ya'll to my boy Brian
2 2 1." I could not breathe. Let's leave it at
that. He told the crowd bout what I did with the web page and I
was honored to be up front with them. Later in the show they
brought me up front again to tell the audience where to get the new
album, and this was no small crowd, about 1 to 2 thousand.....all
watchin me. Damn.
Did
I mention JC can dance hard? As Downtown Venus plays over the
crowd, he's bustin the runnin man hard as can be. All in all
they performed 9 songs, The Sploogitive did 1, and they played some
tunes. (Be told me they would've done 22 different songs but
their damn first set got cancelled from the rain.) Here's the
list........
- Gotta Be...Movin' On Up
- Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine
- Looking Through Patient Eyes
- I Had No Right
- The Sploogitive - Big Women
- Superstition
- Insufficient Funds
- I'd Die Without You
- Downtown Venus
- True / Set Adrift on a Memory Bliss
What's up with #6,7,and 10 you say?
Well they started off Set Adrift with the original song True.....and
then went into Set Adrift. Some of the crowd loved it, and some
of the crowd was confused cause they were hearing different
lyrics. Numbers 6 and 7 are NEW SONGS that will be on F*cked
Music. Superstition is a slowed down, gettin down version of
Stevie Wonder's Superstition......and it is unbelievable. And
insufficient funds is a smooth track that brought me back to the Jesus
Wept days. The crowd was so pumped up that they got Pm back on
stage for an encore performance of Paper Doll.
So
the show was over and it was autograph and picture time. Be and
JC promised to sign every shirt they sold and they sure did.
They sat a table and signed dozens and dozens of shirts, hands,
bracelets and cds. They didn't turn down a single person, even
after they left the autograph table. After getting a few things
signed for myself, I had to take the opportunity to get some pictures
with my favorite group.
|
from left to right - my boy Jawan, Prince Be, myself, and
JC
|
Prince Be, me, and JC
|
The Sploogitive (center), Jamie (right), and a friend
(left)
|
So the summary is this. If you have the means, see P.M. Dawn
in concert. This concert blew me away and Jamie told me on the
scale from 1-10 it was only a 7, but to me it was a 10 so they can
rock even better - unbelievable. Its was one of the most amazing
days of my life.........
-- Brian Welter
Special Thanks to Mike G
(sound man) for gettin me some more pictures from the show
below..........
The following is an
article from the Decatur Celebration newspaper....
For 90's hit makers P.M. Dawn it took a new life to bring about a
musical regirth for the group.
On their newest album, "Dearest
Christian, I'm So Very Sorry for Bringing You Here. Love,
Dad," P.M. Dawn takes on a new direction, extending lessons
on life to group member Prince Be's newborn son. According to
biographical materials, the album is far from a collection of
lullabies, rather, a statement on life's hazards and ways to
overcome them.
The album is a key, according to Be, to a
brighter future for his son.
"We wanted to make a hopeful
record," he said. "I don't want to give it to
everyone on a platter; you really sort of have to get it for
yourself.
"If I'm going to throw someone a
life preserver, blind as I am, I'm throuwing everything I see into
the water," Be said. "There's got to be a life
preserver they can find (in the album) somewhere"
It was 1990 when P.M. Dawn turned up on
the Billboard charts - seemingly out of nowhere - with a unique
blend of candid lyrics and melodies that fit both pop and R&B
sensibilities. Difficult to categorize, much of the two
member team's success was owed to the fact that their music
crossed generational, racial and social lines.
Over the course of four albums in the
90's the group sold millions of albums and delivered
groundbreaking hits, most notably "Set Adrift on a Memory
Bliss" which hit No. 1 on the pop, R&B and dance charts
and the ballad "I'd Die Without You."
Be says that "Dearest
Christian" is more musical and more poignant lyrically than
nany of the group's other works; he did much of the lyrical
composition while partner J.C./The Eternal handled production
duties. And it was all done in an attempt, he says, to make
life better for his son than it was for him.
Be grew up in a single parent household
and was raised by a mother from whom he's been estranged for the
last six years. Be said it was his mother who taught him
what not to do as a parent.
"My kids have really, sincerely,
almost saved my life," he said. "I really truly
needed a reason to be here.
"Then Christian came (and) I have to
stay now."
Decatur Celebration Newspaper - August 5th,
2000
Got a few signatures
while we were out too.....
Great
thanks to P.m. Dawn - for everything.