Snob Rap Fest Review

It was a last minute decision, but last Wednesday my girlfriend and I decided to take the 2.5 hour trek to Seattle to catch Onry Ozzborn's "Snob Rap Fest" - and we weren't let down!

Onry had been planning this for a while now and the lineup was definitely impressive, but we initially decided to pass due to the day of the week it fell on and the show starting relatively early. We ultimately decided, however, it looked too good to miss so we hopped in the car about half an hour before venue doors opened and drove north haha!

Because we obviously arrived later in the night, we unfortunately missed Oldominion's Diveyede's and Destro Destructo's (who was filling in for a sick Heddie Leonne) sets. I was also sad to see that we missed most of the great Sleep's set. We walked in to catch him finishing up "Broke" and reminding the crowd about a hernia he apparently had lol.

Rob Sonic, backed by DJ Zone (who was also backing Sleep and I assume the other OD guys) was the first full set we saw. Compared to other times I've seen Rob, he looked much more looser and comfortable on stage (despite the fact that he also, seriously, had a hernia.) Rob had lots of fun with the crowd and gave Zone multiple opportunities to "freestyle scratch" which was impressive to watch. Highlights included a solid performance of "Braids" (my favorite track off of Rob's latest "Defriender" album) and a great closer with "JJ Sad."

Next up was Onry Ozzborn himself backed by 300 Club Records' J. Ohm. I find that Onry's material isn't always the easiest to translate to a live show due to the fact that a lot of the lyrics really shine in subtlety and risk getting drown out in the sounds of a live set. Onry generally pulls it off though and his set here was no exception. The man waltzed through a handful of his newer tracks ("Doo Wop," "Bummer," "Art of Spellbinding," "Pretty Mvch") and threw in a couple (relative) oldies like "The O O" and "All To Herself" along the way. At the beginning of "TheSubmarineTwoStep," he slipped up and proceeded to freestyle for nearly the entire song before catching up perfectly with the hook at the end. Onry isn't the best freestyler lol, but he didn't lose a single beat! For a closer, we got to hear something off of the upcoming "Tantrum" project which sounds really good.

The closing act was Fake Four head honcho Ceschi. The last time I saw him live was during his "Sad, Fat Luck" tour run, where his set consisted mainly of the "Sad, Fat Luck" album front to back. I was sort of assuming we might get a similar situation here with his latest "Sans Soleil" project. While he did open up with a couple cuts from that album ("Old Graves," "Frank False's Eulogy,") the set ended up being a greatest hits of his more recent projects (mainly "Broken Bone Ballads" and onwards, with a couple OG classics thrown in the mix.) As usual, Ceschi maintained a high energy, high crowd interaction set throughout the night. His transitions between guitar and Macbook were almost always clean, and even when there was a hiccup or two in the gear department, the mood never died down. He also brought Kimya Dawson, who was in the crowd, up to do a wonderful performance of "I Like Giants." As this is the last year of the "Ceschi" act, it was nice to soak up all we could. Hopefully we'll get to see him once more before the year is done. The following is the setlist as well as I can remember it (likely very much out of order:)

- Old Graves
- Frank False's Eulogy
- Sad, Fat Luck
- Take It All Back
- Middle Earth
- Beauty For Bosses
- Bite Through Stone
- Any War
- Say Something
- Sans Soleil
- My Bad
- This City Is Killing Me
- Black And White And Red All Over
- Frank Propose
- Half Mast
- Animal Instincts
- Forever 33/This Won't Last Forever

Great show all around! Glad we made the trip!