Like I said in my recent bump of the Mindless Self Indulgence thread, I've been taking advantage of downtime stemming from a broken old camcorder rendering me unable to continue transferring my old DVC video bootleg tapes and A/V-synch complications with my newer HD gear to finally post some of my old footage I never got around to posting for whatever reason, yet happen to have sitting around ready to go anyway.

Which brings me here!

My Mic In port was broken in early '08 so I couldn't use my external mic and had to rely upon the crappy built-ins, but when I heard Saul Williams was bringing Niggy Tardust to our nation's capitol I just COULD NOT resist. Absolutely HAD TO FILM IT in WHATEVER capacity.

And then I surveyed the venue. Gah!

The 9:30 Club is fuckin' AWESOME, but daaaaamn is it bootlegger-hostile. I saw LOTS of people getting shut down and harassed for simply taking pix with cellphones and disposable cameras so I knew there was no way in HELL they'd be cool about my camcorder. Ugh. So I went to the balcony and prepared to film discreetly from the rail but then at the last second fortuitously took notice of the fact that the venue had "spotters" with flashlights and radios communicating to the bouncers on the floor from little alcoves above and beside the stage!

Bah!

Unfortunately, there was no time to re-position and I just had to adjust and roll with it.

So I set my camcorder on the floor of the balcony and shot the whole show from between the bars of the railing by tilting the flipscreen up and nudging it around with my foot as needed, lol. Improv ftw!

I mean, kinda.

It was a supremely difficult chore to say the least, so it's occasionally off-center with no zooming whatsoever...but wtf, it is what it is.

Which, btw, was a FANTASTIC fucking show.

He killed it, brought his daughter out, she killed it, and they even did "Gunshots by Computer" from Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D, so FUCKYEAH, whatever it takes, right?

Plus, what with the direct involvement of my boot in the process, it's about as "bootlegged" as a bootleg can be, so y'gotta love that, lol.

;)

Anyway, I'm not too up-to-speed with song titles so if anyone could help a nigga out with an accurate setlist that'd be MUCH appreciated.

In the meantime, here you go!


Saul Williams
live in Washington D.C., VA
04/07/08