Sobota 5 Maj 2007, 17:23

Fri 4 May – Slope Day 2007

Apparently $12 of every undergrad's activities fee goes to Slope Day, and less than $1 of every graduate student's. Judging by the cars I've seen people driving around here recently, these figures are approximately proportional to undergrad/grad student wealth. I'm kidding, of course.

I only had a vague idea of what Slope Day was, but it didn't disappoint. The weather was beautiful. It was kind of sad that few people knew TV on the Radio—or maybe I was just too far from the stage. They played the essentials from Return to Cookie Mountain, and some songs I didn't know from their earlier albums, and something that was apparently a cover. I'm hoping there was more energy closer to the stage, but I enjoyed them a lot; honestly, I'd been listening to them so much the previous week that it was just nice to see them, walking around and talking on a warm May day. They were kind of bemused by the experience, though—they may not have been that close a fit.

T.I. was great. Gem of an overheard conversation:

Girl: What's that noise?
Guy: That's a shotgun cocking.

I've never heard a real shotgun, but I, too, knew the sound effect (they kept playing it between songs), it's exactly the one that's on all the albums/mixtapes. Another similarity: it was amazing how T.I. says "homeboy" live just like he says it on wax. The set list had everything, including his guest spots on My Love and We Takin' Over (Feat. Akon, T.I., Rick Ross, Fat Joe, Baby & Lil Wayne), which I've been listening to non-stop recently, especially T.I.'s verse; and, of course, his own favorites, including Why You Wanna, closing with the double-header Bring Em Out (I lost it when I heard Jay's voice) and What You Know, which seemed to be the clever t-shirt catch phrase of the day.

It'd be hard for T.I. to catch up with Lil' Wayne, but everything SFJ says is spot-on.