Written by Sean Ward | Photography by Philip Litevsky

Toronto loves to shout.  Toronto doesn’t like to sing along, and it doesn’t like to shout gibberish.  But if you’re an MC and you want to perform for a crowd that loves to say “Ho”, say “Ho Ho”, and then scream, you couldn’t have dreamed of a more agreeable audience than the one who attended the Rock the Bells festival, 2008 edition, at Arrow Hall in Mississauga.

When my party arrived and entered the venue, the first thing I did was take a long stroll around the place, weaving through the crowd so I could get a feel for the kind of audience that had turned out for this thing.  It didn’t take long to assess that this was entirely a party crowd, here for a no-bullshit good time (save for the one guy who kept screaming about how bum a deal it was for him that A Tribe Called Quest was the headliner and not Nas.  Boy was he upset!)

When Supernatural took the stage and herds of teenagers who I wouldn’t have even thought knew who he was swarmed the stage to give him one of the most solid and warm receptions of the event, I knew that the future is in good hands.  Towards the end of his set, Supernat’ (an MC whose trademark is that he freestyles his whole set whenever he plays) pointed out that he and his accompaniment, beatboxer supreme Scratch, had created a whole record while they were up there.  Songs, hooks, the whole nine.  I only wished that I could indeed see a record like that top the charts.  Supernatural elevates freestyle to a level of accessibility that no one has even dreamed up yet.

Those young students down by the stage who have been studying diligently and know their hip hop well went bonkers for De La Soul and even crazier for Pharcyde.  The last time The Pharcyde performed as a foursome, these fans were in diapers.  Their reunion was a heartfelt event for everyone, and what a personal treat it was for me to be able to turn to whoever that was next to me and pour my heart out along with Slim Kid to Passin’ Me By.

But as much fun as that was, Method Man & Redman’s performance took it up to another level.  If this was Wrestlemania, the previous performances were on the under card.  Meth & Red’s appearance marked the start of the championship matches.  The venue was space was huge, but from the energy in the room and the sheer chaos and insanity these two inspire, it felt like a tiny club.  Girls were dancing, guys were jumping up and down, and you were getting all of the words to everything rapped along from every direction.

The event took place in a big, dark hangar but this was really a festival and needed to be staged as such.  The show clocked in at over 11 hours and it got really tough to stick it out in the latter portion.  Arrow Hall is ill-equipped for an event like this so there were line-ups for everything: food, bathroom, getting out to the patio, getting back in from the patio.  There were no seats anywhere save for down on the dirty concrete floor.  And most lamentable, aside from the stage presentation there was simply nothing to do (they stopped selling beer sometime during the afternoon so even that was out).  The show could feel like an onslaught at times, but there wasn’t really any way to escape it to catch your breath or decompress.

But that didn’t stop everyone from losing their mind when A Tribe Called Quest came on.  The last time the Tribe was supposed to play together in Toronto was their farewell tour, opening for the Beastie Boys.  The astute reader will recall that their Toronto stop was cancelled, and they were replaced with Biz Markie.  Needless to say, their appearance was highly anticipated.  And now here they were, fulfilling the promise of hip hop: everyone from the oldest old-schooler to the youngest new jack, from the hard-cores to the day-trippers, all coming together.  By the end, when the stage went dark, everyone was eager to make a hasty exit after a taxing eleven-hour running time.  But when Tribe reappeared to perform Can I Kick It for an encore, the audience found enough energy to nearly trample the security guards in the race back to the stage.

Guerilla Union is definitely on to something with this format.  I only wish that I were seeing the full version that the U.S. cities get with two stages and a vendor village.  A few organizational tweaks is all that’s needed to turn this into something spectacular, but this is only the event’s second year and its first in Toronto.  Besides, us hip hop fans used to have to content with a token appearance by one act on the bill at Lollapalooza or some such thing for this kind of experience.  Now we have a special summer tradition to call our own.