January 3, House of Blues
An inexperienced Wu-Tang Clan fan—say, one who can’t identify each rapper by face or voice—might have left Mandalay Bay Thursday night believing everything was hunky dory with New York’s celebrated hip-hop crew. Not quite.
After absorbing a series of recent, public body blows from several members of the group he helped found 17 years ago, de facto leader Robert Diggs, better known as RZA, has yet to appear on the Wu-Tang’s three-week-old tour, and Vegas was no exception. Even more telling, the nine MCs who did show performed nary a number from December 11 release 8 Diagrams, the polarizing production of which sparked the recent controversy within the Clan.
Honestly, a little tumult might have helped make the 75-minute, no-encore event a lot more memorable. As it was, once the novelty of marveling over the assemblage of rhyming talent—Method Man, GZA, Ghostface Killah, Raekwon, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa and sometime associates Cappadonna and Streetlife—wore off, the evening mostly amounted to hearing lesser versions of classic cuts from Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Wu-Tang Forever while watching the throng weave its way around the stage somewhat clumsily. Even a tribute to fallen comrade Ol’ Dirty Bastard felt rather perfunctory.
Though Ghostface, Inspectah Deck and the underrated U-God were all in fine voice, only Method Man truly managed to stand out, both with his raspy roars (his eponymous song off the group’s debut was a musical highlight) and gregarious personality—careening wildly from side to side, shaking water onto the first few rows and, on one occasion, diving into the crowd in an obvious attempt to ramp up waning enthusiasm. At the other end of the spectrum, the normally reliable GZA, who wowed Las Vegans during a 2002 stopover at the Blue Note, was virtually nonexistent on this night, leaving his back-line perch alongside DJ Mathematics’ table only when it came time to present a couple of tunes from seminal solo slab Liquid Swords.
Perhaps GZA’s inaction was meant as a display of allegiance to RZA, his cousin and Wu co-founder. Or perhaps, as GZA beef combatant 50 Cent recently suggested, he was simply too drunk to participate. Either way, it wasn’t a compelling enough storyline to make anyone care much. Or to keep serious Wu-heads from considering whether they were witnessing the unraveling of a group that changed the game by standing united for so long.