[ATTENDED: December 11, 2023] Open Mike Eagle
Open Mike Eagle is probably my favorite rapper. His wordplay is great. His topics are great and he seems like a really good guy.
He came out to the little stage, gave a brief introduction and started right in with “Very Much Money.”
My friends are superheros
None of us have very much money though
They can fly, run fast, read Portuguese
None of us have very much money though
They know judo and yoga, photography, politics
Some of them leap over buildings
Writers, magicians, comedians, astronauts
None of it mattered when niggas was hungry
He told us we could help by buying merch.
Open Mike has a new album out and he played a song from it right away, the excellent “BET’s rap city.” Mike has his gear–a laptop and some kind of triggering sample device on the table. Mike’s device was also on a milk crate so he didn’t have to bend over–cheap and effective.
He didn’t do as much live music manipulation as Pink Navel did, although he did do some. But he did leave his work area and come around front a few times.
Like during “Relatable” one of my favorite songs of his. I love his delivery on this song and it was cool having him come right to the edge of the stage–I wonder if he had thoughts of coming down into the crowd.
I found Open Mike through his album Brick Body Kids Still Dream, so I was psyched that he played three songs from it. I absolutely love “(How Could Anybody) Feel at Home” with it’s super catchy chorus. He delivered the chorus in a really different way, which was fun. And the gentle refrain of the following song “Legendary Iron Hood'”s “Ain’t nothing gonna stop me now” was great to hear.
Turns out that I now his What Happens When I Try to Relax EP better than just about anything else. So it was great to hear Relatable and the follow up “Microfiche.” I absolutely love his vocal style and his delivery–and the rhymes of this song are excellent.
For “79th and Stony Island” he did a fun freestyle.
Then it was time for a few more new songs. “WFLD 32” has a slow cadence and drunken horns over more if his clever lyrics
I started rockin’ simply then expandеd
This execution’s iffy but I planned it
I protect it if it gives me an advantage
Still want to be the greatest MC on the planet
Yeah, ’cause I’m immature
If I can name my own sicknesses then it’s cured
I’m finished at high ninety-percentage pure
COVID makin’ it impossible to finish tour
Then the new titles “a new rap festival called falling loud” and “we should have made otherground a thing” which features the lyric “Bonded over MF DOOM.”
This led to him playing the song “For DOOM” saying that a dream came true when he was able to rap with DOOM. He followed that up with a song just for him, by playing (and silently rapping along with) the Madvillain song “Raid.”
There were two songs from his darker EP Anime, Trauma and Divorce, like “Death Parade” with the chorus that discusses the cycle of trauma
Should’ve been cool, but dude got screwed up
‘Cause shit got burned up, so he fucked her up
Then she turned big, I got chewed up
That shit fucked me up, so I’ma fuck you up
A kid caught hell, that kid grew up
And messed his kid up, he fucked her shit up
Then she fucked dude up, it all got screwed up
And that fucked me up, so I’ma fuck you up
And “Bucciarati” has a video with the awesome Paul F Tompkins (see below).
He ended the set with another song from Brick, 95 Radios, which features a chorus everyone can easily get into.
He said that normally he would take a little encore break and pretend to leave the stage. But in Milkboy there’s nowhere to go. So fuck that. He would stay and do more rap on purpose!
This was my first rap show and I realized it’s kind of weird to watch a guy rap when there’s nothing else to look at. No band, no one else on stage. But Mike was captivating. And when he told us that the next song was a gang initiation, I think we were all ready to join up. “Maybe Gang (an initiation)” is another great song from the Relax EP.
It has my favorite line
Confident, I keep my password on my license plate
And with the chorus, he rapped it heavier and heavier
We is not a gang, we all look the same as you
But don’t be ashamed, we all make the same snafu
We got different names, we might get the same tattoo
Maybe it’s a gang, maybe it became that too
It turned out that one of the guys near me went to high school with Mike. Mike knew it and they were nudging each other on all night. It was really fun.
Mike ended the night with one more song, a track from an early EP. “Ziggy Starfish (anti-anxiety raps)” is one of his faster songs and his flow was outstanding.
The show was short–about an hour. But it was great. I was delighted to finally have seen him and I’ll certainly see him again if he comes back next year.
SETLIST
- Very Much Money (Ice King Dream) ©
- BET’s rap city ♥
- I’ll Fight You ∞
- (How Could Anybody) Feel at Home ∏
- Legendary Iron Hood ∏
- Relatable (peak OME) ≅
- Microfiche ≅
- 79th and Stony Island ∞
- WFLD 32 ♥
- a new rap festival called falling loud ♥
- we should have made otherground a thing ♥
- For DOOM ∞
- Raid (Madvillain cover)
- Death Parade ψ
- Bucciarati ψ
- 95 Radios ∏
encore
- Maybe Gang (an initiation) ≅
- Ziggy Starfish (anti-anxiety raps) ¥
© Dark Comedy (2014)
¥ A Special Epsiode Of (2015)
∏ Brick Body Kids Still Daydream (2017)
≅ What Happens When I Try to Relax EP (2018)
ψ Anime, Trauma and Divorce (2020)
∞ A Tape Called Component System With the Auto Reverse (2022)
♥ another triumph of ghetto engineering (2023)
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I saw Jhariah earlier this year open for Pinkshift. I loved his set so much. Everything about it was great. I thought my daughter would love to see him as well, so when they announced a show at Milkboy, I grabbed tickets for both of us (after discovering that she was allowed to be in the over 21 club as long as she stayed with me the whole time). Then it turned out that she was invited to a birthday party and she chose to go to that instead. Which, fair enough.
I saw Speedy Ortiz back in September and the show was fantastic. I already had tickets to see Phish on New Year’s Eve, so it was unlikely that I’d be going to this show.
I Just Read About That... 