Cage @ BB Kings . December 18th, 2009

Opening acts: Shinobi Ninja, Tame One

I got there a little bit late purposely and skipped over the Shinobi Ninja set. Just figured it doesn't make much sense to stand outside in the cold on line and wait for the doors to open at 1100pm for a band whose music on their myspace page was not my cup of tea. Nothing against them though. I got there around 1230am, no lines just walked right in. Tame One was on stage. The house was packed, most people I have ever seen at a Cage show and this would be my fourth this year. Tame One, member of the Artifacts and one half of the Leak Bros, did a pretty good job of warming up the crowd. He closed his set with an acapella rap dedicated to his hometown of Newark which would have even made the Mayor of Newark proud. Pretty good atmosphere inside. Most people were fans that knew all about the Cardboard City Weathermen movement and what it is all about, although you could tell there were some virgins in the crowd not knowing what to expect. After some downtime in between sets, DJ Chauncey and Cage took the stage and opened  up with a botched version of Nothing Left to Say. There were some technical difficulties with the equipment right between the introduction poem and the pounding bassline when Cage starts off the first verse. He starts and then hesitates when he noticed something was wrong. It took a couple of minutes to get back up, in the meantime, Cage was challenging any hecklers in the crowd to come on stage and fight. I'm sure this was just an act but he sounded pretty serious. DJ Chauncey fixed whatever the problem was and then they opened with Nothing Left to Say, which is a song about his best friend Camu Tao who passed away laste year and also about his beef with former Weathermen member Vast Aire. Highlights of the show for me were when Tame One came out on stage and the Leak Bros were reunited on stage for the first time in a long time, they performed the song Dead. The mood of the show had started out with a motionless crowd which seemed to loosen up and get into it towards the end. Throughout the entire show, security guards were hunting through the crowd sniffing for random clouds of weed smoke that could be seen up in the air. When they found their man/woman, they would drag them out of the crowd a bouncer on each side holding each arm. For the last five or six songs, Cage brought out the special guests Chauncey had hinted about on Twitter all week. Special guests included Daryl Palumbo, also known as The President of Cardboard City, famous as the lead singer for Glassjaw and Head Automatica. Jarvis from Head Automatica on bass. Nick Hook, of Cubix Zicornia on keyboards and still DJ Chauncey on live electronics and turntables. El-P was there on stage walking around videotaping the performance with a little handheld device. You could tell that Cage, himself, who is known for being a depressed nuerotic psychological mess was genuinely happy to be on stage with his longtime friends. Overall it was a lot of fun. Looking forward to what lies in store for the Cardboard City Weathermen team in 2010.