Whereas enveloping Webster Corridor in a haze of boom-bap nostalgia final Thursday, Widespread took a break for a date. Kicking again on a tomato-red sofa, Com unfurled a folksy freestyle for each the gang and the woman — an viewers member — sitting subsequent to him. With Pete Rock and basic vinyl behind him, he delivered a free-wheeling and rapid rhyme session, nodding towards superstar friends like DJ Premier and absolutely anything else his racing thoughts might conjure. With its mix of a gymnast’s acrobatics and an easygoing, however targeted mic presence, it was technically sharp but sometimes clumsy, carrying all of the attraction of a b-boy attempting to impress a potential lover. He may as properly have led with, “Can I kick a rhyme for you?”
It was down dwelling. It was dexterous. It was the newest cease in Widespread and Pete Rock’s Auditorium Tour, a trek supporting their first-ever joint album, The Auditorium Vol. 1. Just like the album itself, the present was concurrently unfastened and tidy, with the 2 taking turns rocking the gang with each solo creations and tracks from their new LP. When Com wasn’t performing “The Meals” or “The Folks,” he was spitting his personal remix of Pete Rock and CL Easy’s “They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.),” along with his paternal baritone reverberating by a sold-out Webster venue. When Com wasn’t rapping, Pete Rock unloaded his personal 16s, with one among them being his verse on Run D.M.C’s “Down With the King.” After all, his personal instrumentals additionally soundtracked a lot of the night time.
Widespread and Pete Rock carry out at Webster Theater in New York Metropolis on Sept. 26, 2024.
Photograph by Kaushik Kalidindi for Okayplayer.
Whereas they crossed into totally different eras and sounds, and there was loads of floor space to cowl, issues by no means felt sluggish; their frequent call-and-response interactions with the gang embedded all of it with a way of momentum. There was a coordinated spontaneity: At one level, Pete Rock started making a beat on his MPC, and naturally, there was Widespread’s aforementioned freestyle. The continued exercise crammed up any potential empty areas, making a playful kineticism that saved the gang engaged. The particular friends helped with that, too.
At varied factors of the night time, people like Camp Lo’s Geechi Suede and De La Soul’s Posdnuos popped out to bask within the golden age revivalism; Geechi carried out “This Is It (Luchini),” whereas Posdnuos served up an electrical rendition of “Me Myself and I. It was each a tribute to the previous and the flexibility to deliver these reminiscences into the current. It’s an unstated assertion of objective for Widespread and Pete Rock’s joint album. It’s the rationale they will nonetheless promote out venues like this another than 30 years into their respective careers. A reminder that, typically, what was can nonetheless be in case you love exhausting sufficient.
When Widespread rapped “The Gentle,” it sounded as pristine because it did when it rang by your boombox 25 years in the past. Gliding throughout the stage to carry out his love letter to hip-hop, “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” Com emitted all of the wide-eyed sincerity of somebody who nonetheless does.
