Concert Night: Saul Williams and the Afropunk Tour at the Varsity Theater

Only in America can beat poets become hip-hop gods. Well, if they're Saul Williams they can...

Williams, an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam was kind enough to grace Minneapolis with his magnanimous presence last night at the Varsity Theater as the headliner of the Afropunk Tour. The tour, which also featured Dearling Physique, No Bird Sing, and American Fangs in this stretch, has been a huge success in every city it has stopped in so far.

Williams' purple peacock look.

Williams' set included songs off of his 2007 collaboration with Trent Reznor, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, his self-titled debut album, as well as the incredible spoken-word that first made him famous including the intro to The Dead Emcee Scrolls, his most recent undertaking.

It was a high-powered, chest-pounding show that, as any good small-venue should, left you throughly deaf afterwards.

Some of the evening's highlights were the most unanticipated moments, including:

Williams, pre-tackle...

-a tiny 5-foot nothing white girl dancing awkwardly and then eventually tackling Saul Williams when he came down into the crowd by trying to hug his legs.

-the tour's Budweiser and Converse sponsorship, which led to random outbursts of "Budweiser!" by performers throughout the night, including the emcee's assertion that they were cool enough to sponsor the tour, so the least we could f---ing do was "drink Bud and wear Chucks."

-Williams, in his second song after the encore, forgetting the lyrics and instead singing, on perfect pitch and timing: "To forget all the lyrics you ever f---ing wrote, trying to remember the lyrics to this song that nobody f---ing knows"

It was a great show, and yes, Saul, some of your fans do know your insane lyrics well enough to know when some are out of place... but we love you anyways.

A Few Videos I managed to crappily record at the show:

Love from this city,

K