Friday at the DC Armory: Old School GoGo Reunion
DC Armory, 2001 East Capital Street, Washington, DC 20003

I got a little lost on my way to the DC Armory, but ended up being plenty on time. I got to the DC Armory at about 10:30 after parking. There was an expected security check. Then I walked in and there were rows of tables with white table clothes on either side of the dance floor. I looked on the left side, then the right for someone I knew. Roosevelt Littlejohn was on the right and invited me to sit down with him and Rochelle. I asked what the order was, I was told EU, Trouble Funk, Rare Essence, and Chuck Brown as the headliner. As far as I am concerned, this was a Trouble Funk show. They, together with Familiar Faces, are my favorite GoGo band and the rest of the bands in this show I can see anytime. Roosevelt told me most of Trouble Funk was in the back, but I could clearly see a number of the band members sitting at a front table - I should have gone up and talked to them, but I was hoping to meet the whole band at once, next time I won't make the same mistake. (Update: Roosevelt said he was going to bring me up on stage during the performance, but couldn't find me in the crowd, but he'll make sure next time).

EU
EU came on, starting off their performance with John Legend's Ordinary People. Next they performed their own song, Ooh La La. Off the top of my head, they performed Um Bop Bop, EU Freeze, a song I didn't recognize with the line "Ribbit, give it up", Amerie's 1 Thing, and a couple of instrumentals.

Billy the Kid was insufferable during the breaks, he talked nonstop. There was an area in the right corner (from the front, not the performer's right) for GoGo pics and a cafeteria. Bars were on both ends.

Trouble Funk
Trouble Funk performed next. I really enjoyed their performance. There were only a couple of negatives: their time was cut short, and Big Tony was rightly pissed about it, and Iceberg Slim's voice was gone when he rapped for Don't Touch That Stereo. They performed: Say What (Tease, and later the full song), (Let's) Get Small, Pump Me Up, Trouble Funk Express, So Early in the Morning, a Tee Bone percussion solo, Don't Touch that Stereo, E Flat Boogie, and Ludacris' Number One Spot. After Pump Me Up, the promoters (The Firm) turned the main speakers off as a way of letting Trouble Funk know they wanted to cut short their time. Big Tony complained, "About the same old crap, they want to cut our time in half." After Don't Touch That Stereo Tony talked about how, "They will have to cut the power to stop us from continuing to play". Then he said, "Let's go back to the beginning" and then they performed E Flat Boogie. They closed with Ludacris' Number One Spot; then Big Tony said, "They cut the power on us; we have no choice but to stop". Fortunately, Billy the Kid mentioned they would be performing at Club Levels on May 28th, along with EU, Ayre Rayde, and Mass Extinction. Chuck's granddaughter danced on stage with them during their performance. Also, their drummer continually would toss drumsticks to the back as he was done with them. I am not sure hoe many people they had in the band: Big Tony on vocals and bass, three other vocalists in the front line, two keyboard players, a guitarist, two Sax players, a trumpet plaer, a drummer, Tee Bone on percussion, and Iceberg Slim on vocals for Don't Touch That Stereo only.

The performance was filmed; hopefully it will appear on DVD. I hoped to talk with Big Tony after the performance, but he went in the back. I realized that a middle-age white man and woman there was Tom Goldfogle and Becky Marcus of Liaison. I recognized a number of people there - among them Teago Ward and Kato of TMOTTGOGO.com. Preston Blue was with Teago. I wonder who was doing FF's sound tonight, as Googie, Telando, Vincent, and one of Vincent's associates (Paul?) were all at this show. I briefly talked to Kato and a writer named Tawanda by the stage. Then Angie, Tracy, and Robin came by and I spent the rest of the show with them.

Rare Essence
We went to get something to drink, then sat down. Tracy formally introduced me to Robin, her cousin. I told Robin I saw her at Wednesday's show. She said, "Oh, that's not good." They had missed the earlier part of the show as they sat in the car during the rain. I pointed out Nece, the promoter. Tracy talked about how expensive the lights were during Rare Essence's setting up. They had a light with the Rare Essence logo, and an involved intro that Angie said sounded Satanic, like a record played backwards. Rare Essence performed the tightest (I mean in the sense of being organized and having rehearsed) of all four of the bands, but their sound sucked. The percussion, particularly Go-Go Mickey is their strongest asset to me, and yet it was way back in the mix. Their percussionist on timbales and roto-toms might as well have been banging on a table for how poorly you could hear his playing. Little Benny sat in with them. They were all dressed in black, which while it was good to all be dressed the same, made them hard to see because of the dim lighting and the black stage background. What I can remember of their performing (I didn't even try to bring a pen in, having had too many pens lost to security checks): Lock It, Do the Mickey, Marinda, Shoo-Be-Do-Wop, and Ashlee Simpson's Pieces of Me. Whiteboy talked about Tricky Rick briefly. Angie had said this was her first time seeing Rare Essence perform. She asked me which guy was Whiteboy; I pointed him out and told her why he's called that. She said they play the same songs as FF, I told her Donnell composed a lot of those songs. Their new female vocalist, whose name I don't remember, sang Ashlee Simpson's Pieces of Me. Chuck Brown also briefly sat in on their performance, but I have no idea what he sang. They had the largest crowd. Whiteboy did a shout out to Tricky Rick.

Chuck Brown
Chuck came on last. He had three horns - trumpet, Sax, trombone, a keyboard player, a drummer, two percussionists, then later Little Benny on vocals and Kay Kay rapping. He played It don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Go-Go Swing), Moody's Mood for Love, Run Joe, Fiesta, a tease of Funkadelic's Undisco Kidd, a remix of the Cops theme song, and Snoop's Drop It Like It's Hot. I was surprised how positively the crowd reacted to Chuck, more than any other of the bands. A few minutes after 3 AM, the lights came on and the show ended shortly afterward. While the show was good, the crowd was too small - The Firm lost a lot of money.