Monday at Le Pearl (Mad Chef Cafe)
Mad Chef Cafe, 7929 Central Ave, Capitol Heights, MD 20743

Spanky recommended I attend this show so I could write about it. Unfortunately, do to the traffic being slowed by the rain, I was a little late. I went to the front of the Mad Chef, which is where I had entered it when I had previously attended - I could hear music playing inside. I knocked and a guy reminded me it was underage and that the entrance was through the back. I went around back. Spanky introduced me to Antwon. He handed me a flyer for tonight's event, which was only $5. I went in around 10:15 PM.

I had just missed Undisputed Band's performance unfortunately. I noticed Tee Bone was working the monitors. He came over and talked to me briefly about how Trouble Funk would be playing again soon. Between thirty and fifty people were in the audience when I arrived. The Mad Chef is designed as a dance studio. A number of copies of two posters which prominently displayed TCB and UCB lined the walls.

Mad Collision was the second band to perform. They had a group huddle before they performed. The music was very loud, louder than most other GoGo I've been to. The keyboards were loudest. There was not a lot of dancing - this is probably because of Mad Collision's greater use of congas instead of roto-toms. As the music got more intense, so did the distortion. The percussion, vocals (mostly chanting and rapping) and keyboards were the most distinct. The more intense it got, the more the crowd liked it and the more they danced. More girls danced than boys. The lighting was dim during the performances, but not dark. The crowd responded to the band when addressed. They performed a thirty minute set.

During the break, a number of people sat along the walls (there are no chairs for fans in the dance floor area). Break time was also the time that the audience members socialized with each other. They didn't pay much attention to the pre-recorded DJ music played during the break. The fashion worn was casual - virtually everyone wore jeans, with t-shirts, especially plain ones, worn by most of the boys. Boys also wore collared shirts and basketball jerseys. Another thing I noticed that is different from older aged GoGo fashions was that very few people outside of band members wore outfits from DC fashion lines - I did see one person with an All Dayz shirt. This break was long, the longest during the night - I don't know why. The DJ asked people in the audience to sign one of the two cards (one by the DJ, one by the door) for Tinko (spelling?) of M.O.B., who had been shot.

Pitch Black was up next, although for some reason their lead talker referred to M.O.B. a few times. The DJ started in on fashions - saying that a short sleeved shirt needs to reach your elbow, etc. He made fun of me wearing khakis - he specifically said, "Who is that wearing Dockers to the GoGo?", but obviously I was not part of the regular audience and wasn't trying to blend in. Pitch Black had a long sound check. By the time they had started performing, the audience had grown. The women in front exchanged hand signals with the band, holding their arms up with their index fingers and thumbs like an L. They played the roto-toms more prominently (only congas on the first song) and the band responded appreciatively and danced harder. The lead talker asked where "you all are from" and the crowd responded.

M.O.B. was up next. By the time they started performing, the crowd had grown to over a hundred people. They also had a group huddle, but concluded it with a chant/yell. They went straight to the roto-toms. Their sound was a little less rough than the previous bands' sound. They also sang a little more. They opened with a tease of Bobby Valentino's Slow Down. The percussionist did briefly play congas in the middle of their set. A lot of the audience up front held their hands during the set. The lead talker did a lot of beat boxing. They did a cover of Junkyard Band’s Ruff It Off.

TCB was next, the headliner (I don't know why CCB didn't perform tonight). This was my first time seeing TCB (in a real performance, I did attend, not see, a two song performance last year), the leading band in the young circuit. Their sound was so much cleaner than the other bands that it was like night and day. They started out without much percussion, and had more singing than the other groups and even harmony. Then the percussionist started playing congas. During the second song, he switched to roto-toms - that's when the audience really started to dance. Throughout the show, the audience seemed to respond more to the level of intensity of the bands' music, rather than hooks and beats. Among the songs TCB performed was one about "P*ssy feels good", Destiny's Child's Soldier, "Where the gangster's at", "Bring 'em out", and a song referring to "Beating your feet". They also performed a song with videogame sound effects. Their set was about ninety minutes. They finished about 2:50 AM. TCB was clearly the best band and the fans responded accordingly.