That was the advice of Public Enemy’s Professor Griff (in the red beret, to Chuck D.'s left) on 1988’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, as in “Armageddon has been in effect: Go get a late pass.”
It’s also the name of the mid-show segment at a Roots show when drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson (thinking hard, below, with hands to his temples), guitarist Capt. Kirk Douglas and a sousaphone playing madman who goes by the name Tuba Gooding Jr. have the stage all to themselves.
At the Tower Theater on Friday – where the band started playing in the balcony before making its way down the center aisle – the trio took the opportunity to play “Masters of War,” by, as ?uestlove called him, “the great Bob Dylan.” They picked the song tospeak out about “this mindless … war we’ve been fighting,” the drummer said, and to encourage people “not to be afraid of criticizing our government.”
What followed was a radically rearranged take on Dylan’s 1963 protest song, the most vehemently of his Vietnam era screeds, in which he spat out moral condemnation, and wished for retribution on warmongers with blood on their hands: “And I hope that you die, and you death’ll come soon/I’ll follow your casket in the pale afternoon.”
By the Roots, the song was more gentle and violent than it ever has been for Dylan. Douglas sang out the melody loud and clear, carefully enunciating each word so the sold out house could get the point, and after the second verse, the music came crashing in, thunderously loud, with Metallica precision.
The grandiose presentation fit the song’s high seriousness, and while Thompson and Douglas each outdid themselves, the guy everybody walked away talking about was the tuba player (a member of Jeff Bradshaw’s Brass Heaven, who just completed a U.S. tour with the Roots) who scrambled around pumping out basslines like an overcaffeinated elephant let loose on the stage.
Just another reminder that the Roots are the greatest – and most surprising – live hop hop band in the land.
Here's a link to a version that the band did a Dylan tribute at Avery Fischer Hall in New York last November. blogs.heraldtimesonline.com/jbjfiles/Roots/The%20Roots%20-%20Masters%20of%20War%20Live.mp3
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