A TRIBE CALLED QUEST (3 stars)
September 8, Red Rock Station
I'd like to tell you Tribe played for two hours, returning for three encores before collapsing backstage. In reality, though, $60 a ticket (excluding taxes and fees) only bought the Red Rock crowd a 45-minute main set and one three-song encore, an all-too-brief affair exacerbated by the unexplained absence of opener Rhymefest.
I'd also like to tell you that, at age 36, MCs Q-Tip and Phife Dawg sounded like they did in their early 20s, when they reigned as the smoothest rhyming duo around. But an oft-hoarse Phife and a strangely nasal Tip struggled so much with their pitch, at times I couldn't have identified either by voice alone.
I can tell you that, despite the night's obvious shortcomings, I left the reunited Tribe's third appearance feeling as though I'd witnessed something special, and with a headful of lifelong memories: of Q-Tip, Phife and DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad mugging together when they arrived onstage; of original member Jarobi White running the Globetrotters' weave with Tip and Phife; of Muhammad's headphoned dome bobbing as he lay down super-familiar beats from The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders; and of the MC trio combining for an elegant a cappella jam, culminating in an old-school beatbox jam.
Most of all, I'll remember the tunes, many of which first drew me to hip-hop as a rock-centric college student some 15 years ago. "Buggin' Out," "Can I Kick It?," "Scenario," "Steve Biko (Stir it Up)," "Butter," "Award Tour" and, of course, "Check the Rhime." Hearing Q-Tip work his "abstract" lyrics from that last number ("If knowledge is the key then just show me the lock/Got the scrawny legs but I move just like Lou Brock"), then spit out the classic "Industry rule number four thousand and 80/Record company people are shady!" couplet felt worth the long wait for Tribe's re-emergence all by itself.