Ice Cream Man

Editor’s note – We’ve always taken an open approach to posts on this site. When I invite someone to write-up a show, I often encourage them to simply write how they feel and what they’d tell their friends about the show, rather than a more traditional, formal review. I failed English twice in high school, so this has always been the way I write. We here at ICM are fans of Sage and our friends in Free Moral Agents, his backing band. Steve jumped on board to help Jeremiah with words from his own experience at the show and unfortunately, he wasn’t as into the set as he has been in the past. Most of our reviews are positive, but sometimes they’re not. As much as this write up is one person’s opinion of the show, we’d like to point out some things that Steve neglected to mention. Steve left early and missed a one-time performance of “Best of Times” with Yann Tiersen. Steve also neglected to state any possible reasons for Sage’s show being undersold (i.e. economy, higher ticket prices, several other shows in competing markets, Lakers vs Celtics playoff game, MTV awards, etc.).

We would like to offer our sincere condolences to Sage for his recent loss and wish him the best.

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Original Post:

When I got the invitation to cover Sage Francis at the Music Box for Ice Cream Man, I couldn’t have been more excited. My history with Mr. Francis goes way back. I have every single album / mix tape he’s ever come out with and I’ve seen him play the Glass House, Coachella, the Troubadour and a couple years earlier at the Henry Fonda (now called the Music Box). I really like the direction he took with his new album Li(f)e and since buying it the day it dropped, I’ve listened to it somewhere between 50 and 100 times already. I think it could be his best album since Personal Journals. So, yeah, heading into the show on Sunday night, I was ready. Two and a half hours later, we were leaving the concert during Sage’s set, before his set was even over. How did all this happen?

I was a little bummed out when I first entered the Music Box because it was half empty. Sometimes going to these kind of shows is fun, because you can get right up to the front, have all the space you want and there are no lines for the beers. However, as a die-hard Sage fan, I was bummed that at this stage of his career, he wasn’t selling out the Music Box in a town where just about every show sells out. We showed up a little later than usual in hopes of skipping the openers and getting to the good stuff. That didn’t really work out for us. One of my biggest knocks on Sage’s live shows has been his questionable decision-making on who to add to his bill and who he performs with on stage. His opener was a guy named B. Dolan. At first, I literally thought the guy was setting up equipment on stage and decided to grab the mic and start rapping. To my dismay, he continued to perform several songs and as it became painfully obvious that Sage was going to be late to start his set, he kept the party going. After a pretty forgettable set, the crowd had lost a lot of its energy. I realize the predicament that artists find themselves in. Sage has a record label, so how is he not going to put his artists on his bill to not only promote them, but his label at the same time? I get it, but if they’re not all that good, you’re taking away from what’s most important, and that’s having a great tour.

About 45 minutes late, Sage finally made his way on stage with a hood over his head and the strings pulled tightly giving him the scrunched up, little kid look. Fired up that the man of the hour was on, the crowd got back into it and all was well in the world once again. For those of you that haven’t listened to Li(f)e, it’s very indie rock influenced and a lot of the beats were recorded with instruments versus drum machines and samples. It wasn’t surprising that instead of playing with a DJ, Sage played with a live band. This decision, while a logical one, was what derailed the show for me. I never like live bands performing with rappers (unless you’re the Roots) and this was no exception. While cool in theory, bands seem to play off beat from the rapper and depending on how well the sound is being controlled, can have a tendency to drown out the rapper’s voice. That’s exactly what happened at this show. While The Free Moral Agents did their job and played the songs, it just didn’t work together.

I once went to two Atmosphere shows within a year of each other. One with a live band and one without. It was night and day. While the average person might say adding a live band to a show is a big addition, it’s taking away one of the two major components of why rap is so amazing. The beat. It’s precise, it sounds exactly the way it’s supposed to. The beat doesn’t drown out the rapper, but enhances his performance. That was what was missing from the show Sunday night. In all fairness, Sage was performing at about 80% of his usual energetic self, and the half empty venue didn’t do much to add to the energy level either. So after listening to about ¾ of his set, still waiting for that song that was going to deliver the way we wanted it to, we decided to take off. Was this an indictment of Sage Francis? A sign of things to expect for the rest of the tour? I don’t think so. I just think it was a low light of what should otherwise be a good tour. Had the band been a little tighter, had Sage’s energy been a little higher, had the venue been sold out and brought the energy that was missing, it could have been different. But unfortunately, none of those things were there on Sunday night at the Fonda.