The Final Chamber at Rod Laver Arena
MUSIC
Wu-Tang Clan | Wu-Tang Forever: The Last Room ★★★
Rod Laver Arena, March 27
How can Wu-Tang, a band that rewrote the DNA of hip-hop and what it means to be cool, be nostalgic for their heyday?
They started by turning Rod Laver Arena into a giant recreation of my bedroom, circa 1997, with Wu-Tang in heavy rotation. I haven’t been in a room this choked with weed smoke since my VCE.
And like me doing my VCE, there was a distinct feeling that I wasn’t ready to present to the class.
The elephant in the room: Half the group wasn’t there. Although Wu-Tang Forever: The Last Room Tour While it was advertised as “all living members together for the last time”, Method Man, Raekwon, Cappadonna and Young Dirty Bastard were absent without explanation. The rappers who depend on the sound of many of Wu-Tang’s greatest tracks.
Thus began the complex and rapid run of one of the greatest discographies in history. The remaining members sang other members’ lines in some songs and left others half-way. Radio hit in high-energy dance towards the end of the show gravel pit I ran toward a handful of bars until it became impossible to salvage Method Man’s cool delivery via karaoke and I just…stopped.
Wu-Tang famously “formed like Voltron”; together is greater than the sum of its parts. Remove these pieces and watch Voltron’s wheels fall off in real time.
On several occasions, the Klan all went offstage together to air recorded videos and skits. A mid-set to a Barbra Streisand song in tribute to fallen rappers? Touching but surprising. Also: Trailer for RZA’s new movie? A QR code for Wu-Tang’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Some kind of giveaway? Why not at this point?
GZAs Vocal delivery is tight and powerful as always. RZA remains one of the coolest guys on the planet and does some incredible heavy lifting for the stripped-down clan. Unfortunately, the sheer brilliance of its beats – the sparse, iconic production that defined an era – was recreated by a live band, lost in a mix of sound that was both muddy and shrill.
But when you can hear them, when they’re hitting their bars, when the whole crowd is jumping on their aging knees to immortal rhythms, it’s undeniable – it’s Wu-Tang forever.
Scattered, chaotic, flashes of brilliance; It was a show with bad sound but great energy, 35 years and five minutes in the making.
Reviewed by Liam Pieper
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Liam Pieper is the author of Appreciation, a book about art and celebrity.Connect with: X.
