Wednesday at Cranberries
Cranberries, 5740 Silver Hill Road, Suitland, MD 20747

I had pmed the Firm Project's manager Rod and asked which night was best to see them, they said Wednesday. So I finally made it out this week. Cranberries wouldn't let me bring my camera in. GoGo PAs were played before the Firm Project performed. A litte before 10:30 the Cranberries staff took the tables and chairs on the dance floor away. I bought an advance ticket for Saturday from Mia, the bartender. Ceiling fans came on, even thought it was cold anyway. Rah came in, said hello to me, and sat down by me.

The Firm Project
The keyboards (Jay (co-manager) a triple keyboard in front and Brian, a double keyboard behind it) were on the left, Tyrese (female vocalist), the lead talker, Candice (female vocalist), the male lead singer, Larry (the guitarist) all the way on the right, in back was Jesse (the drummer) and two percussionists Eric (congas), Chico (roto-toms) (percussion was on the right).

Manager me Rod. Front line is B.O., DeVon, Tyrese, Candice, drummer Jesse, congos Eric, roto toms Chico, keyboards & [co manager] Jay and Brian. Led Larry and Bass Nick. And that's the Firm Project

The bass player started off behind the vocalists, but quickly moved on to the dance floor to the left of the monitors, leaning his back on the left big speakers. They started at 10:40. They had a very nice sound and cranked too. It's hard for me to come up with a setlist, not just because I didn't recognize most of the lyrics, but: They did not play the music behind the songs (to my ears), with what I played, the fact that they played continously, and the lack of noticable transitions (to me), all but the last song was essentially one long medley. This was something very different and I liked it. The lead talker started off by saying, "Damn, it's chilly y'all.", then he said, "Tyrese isn't going to be with us much longer, she's certainly going to be missed." (I had already read that she was leaving.) Among the the songs I recognized the lyrics to were Salt N Pepa's My Mic Sounds Nice and Erykah Badu's Cleva. I also recognized riffs from the Bar-Kays' Holy Ghost. The lead talker joked, "The Firm Project got designated drivers for all the drinkers." The lead talker also did shout outs to Rah and Funky. The lead talker kept saying one more song, but they kept playing beyond that. The final song, definitely with the original music to it, distinguishing it from the rest of the set, was Floetry's Supastar. Starting in the middle of the set, multi-colored spotlights came on from behind the right side of the stage. Virtually everyone I saw sat down during the performance (I was at a booth), but my waittress danced. I didn't realize ahead of time that it wasn't going to just be the Firm Project performing. After the peformance, I went and introduced myself to the lead talker, he introduced me to the two managers. Rah and his friends left after the Firm Project's performance.

L!sen Da Grew^P
L!ssen Da Grew^P was the head liner. Some new fans came in, including a couple of girls who sat at my booth. One asked me if I was having a good time. I couldn't tell it was L!ssen until I saw Songbird, partly because the combination of the mostly darkness and the spotlights in back that were now only yellow and white (which made it so your eyes couldn't adjust to the dark), it was hard to see the stage. This was only my second time seeing them, the first was on New Year's Day. Quite frankly, they bored me, so after talking with Black Heart briefly, I left during the third song.