Rock The Bells Turns Sour in Toronto

Toronto stop of the infamous tour fails to please

The much heralded Rock the Bells Tour rolled through Toronto, Canada on December 5th, and just about everything that could have went wrong, making it perhaps one of the worst executed hip hop shows in Toronto’s history.

The bitterly chill temperatures and extremely long lineup seemed worth it for all those who already bought $40+ tickets.  Those who didn't have tickets were directed to an armoured truck where $50 tickets were being sold, despite a posting on the truck stating that Redman & Raekwon, two of the highly anticipated acts, would not be performing. Once the show started, the vibe seemed good, and a great turn out of Toronto heads came together to witness what the infamous Rock the Bells tour was all about. 

We walked into the Kool Haus to Starting from Scratch spinning anthems and Kardinal Offishal hosting. Toronto veterans, they perfectly built a momentum and eagerness in the crowd for the amazing showcase that was supposed to follow.  However, the momentum turned over into restlessness as this set continued to drag on for over two and a half hours.  No one seemed to know what was up. Not Kardi, nor Skratch or any of the organizers.  Well that is actually a key to this issue, just so happens that none of the Rock the Bells Tour staff made it to Toronto.  Kind of hard to throw a successful event without even showing up. 

DJ Kool finally jumped up on the mic and gave Toronto a proper Rock the Bells welcome.  He killed the decks and got the crowd's energy back up to where it needed to be. He brought a high energy, old school flavour, shouting out hypeness on the mic. Next up it was Supernatural, the longest freestyle heavyweight that hit the stage. His presence was monumental.  He had the crowd wrapped around his finger, really keeping them involved with his performance. Although it wasn't planned as such, this ended up being the hightlight of most people's night.  After his performance an announcement was finally made confirming the no shows; there was no Redman, no Raekwon and now additionally, no Smif’n’Wessun. 

While this announcement was being made, Earwaks was in the back room of the Kool Haus catching an interview with Supernatural after his performance.  For a while it seemed like the main room was silent, but we hardly noticed it, being engulfed in the words of the freestyle lyrical genius we were interviewing.  When we finally realized what was going on, an eerie feeling fell over us about the events in the main room.  We later found out that someone from the crowd threw a bottle at EPMD's DJ Scratch and it hit his laptop set-up on stage.  Justifiably so, Scratch got on the mic and had a few words to say to the person who pulled such a wack move.  He was extremely pissed off, took off his beer soaked shirt, threw it in the crowd and then packed his belongings and left the venue.  Erick and Parrish heard of what had gone down, and were ready to leave without performing as well.Bbut to the luck of the local promoters and Kool Haus security, Kardinal was able to convince them to stay and perform.  Since DJ Scratch refused to go back on, P-Plus and Starting from Scratch once again stepped up to help the situation. They did not know they were going to have to deal with such a nightmare of events and did their best to make up for Scratch's absence, despite only having a handful of EPMD instumentals on them. Only four to be exact, which meant only four tracks would be performed. 

EPMD should be credited as the brought a good energy to their show, but between tracks told the crowd how disappointed they were with what happened.  When the four tracks were done, it was over, and with a peaceful sign off Erick dropped the mic, unexpectedly ending the concert with a thundering thump.

At this point, a real unsettling feeling came over the venue and most people started to either make noise about what happened, or boogied out of the venue as fast as possible.  We did the latter and got out of the spot.

 
Obviously, this show went completley opposite from planned and stunned many who were in attendance that night, and those that heard about it in the next days. The whole series of events was surprising because Rock the Bells is a very reputable event promotions company that has pulled off things that many have thought were not possible.  Maybe they thought they had everything handled, but in this particular case, they were way off.

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For another very detailed recap of the Toronto edition of Rock the Bells by the undeniably reputable Jesse Ohtake over at the Cybrkrib, click here.

This little hitch hasn't slowed down Rock the Bells at all...watch their movements at www.rockthebells.net 

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