jmob4

So about two weeks ago, April 2, 2011, I went to the 6th annual Paid Dues Festival. This was the second time that I went to this festival and I had a blast, it was so much fun. My friends and I got the VIP tickets, so that we could get the free stuff (t-shirt, backpack, poster, and two drinks) and get to meet some of the artists that were going to be performing that day. We got there around 12:30pm, about an hour after the gates opened, because that’s around the time that the first act went on.

We got there, got all of our free stuff and then we decided to go walk around the merch booths and see what they had there. There wasn’t too much exciting stuff in the merch area, although we did get to meet 2Mex at the Grimm Image Records’ merch booth, meet Okwerdz while he was walking around, and I picked up Varsity Blues 2 at Murs’ merch booth.

Me, 2Mex, Henry, & Jesse

Me, Okwerdz, Henry, & Jesse

The first performance that we saw was of Intuition at the Grindtime Now stage, which was an octagon cage like at UFC fights. This was a cool idea, but all it really did was make it hard to see the performers. This was the second time that I’ve seen Intuition live and he put on a really good set. He also had Verbs perform a couple of songs with him and together they had a lot of energy. The only bad thing about his set was that it was only lasted for 15 minutes, which is way too short in my opinion.

After his set was over, we stuck around at the Grindtime Now stage to watch Machina Muerte do their set. Before this, I had only heard of Machina Muerte, but I had knew nothing about them and had never heard their music before. For people who don’t know, Machina Muerte is a record label with around 20 artists on it. For their set, around one different artists performed solo songs and groups songs for their 2o minute set. I’m not sure of everyone that performed, but I know that Mestizo, Isaiah Toothtaker, Luckyiam, LushOne, and Kap Kallous were there. They put on a really good set and I’m definitely going to check out more of their music.

After their set was over we went back to the VIP area and we were able to meet Murs and get a picture with him. I’ve met Murs a couple of times before this and every time he seems to be a really nice guy.

Me & Murs

After this, we went back to the Grindtime Now stage to see Grieves & Budo perform. This was one of the sets that I was more excited to see. I’ve seen them perform numerous times in the past, but I always look forward to seeing them again. Grieves has a ton of energy while he is on stage and Budo always seems to be very passionate no matter what instrument he is playing. They played a couple of their new songs that will be on their upcoming release, on Rhymesayers, and they were all great! I’ll post them at the end with the rest of the videos from the festival. After their set was over Grieves & Budo both stuck around afterwards to meet their fans and to hand out free cds.

Jesse, Grieves, & Me

Me & Budo

After their set was over, the next performance that we wanted to see was P.O.S and Mike Mictlan of Doomtree. This was probably the performance that I was most excited to see out of everyone that was performing this year. P.O.S is not only one of my favorite rappers, but he is also one of my favorite live performers to see. Their set consisted mostly of P.O.S songs, but they also did a couple of Mike Mictlan’s. Including “Game Over,” which is one of my favorite songs by Mike Mictlan. As always, they had a ton of energy and really got the crowd into it. It was such a great set! A little later in the day, I even got meet P.O.S and get a picture with him.

P.O.S & Me

After their set was over, we went back to the VIP area for the meet & greet with some of the artists. We got to meet Immortal Technique, Bun B, Asher Roth, & Sage Francis.

Henry, Sage Francis, & Me

After the meet & greet was over, we went to the Paid Dues stay to watch Sage Francis do his set. We got there a little late, so we missed his first couple of songs. I had never seen Sage Francis live before, so I was really excited to see him perform. He performed a mix of his new and old stuff. He performed “That Ain’t Right” off of his Non-Prophets and he also performed a song with Eternia, who had performed earlier in the day. He finished up his set with “The Best of Times.”

After his set was over, we rushed over to the Dues Paid stage to catch a couple of Murs songs before Immortal Technique went on at the Paid Dues stage. There were so many people watching him that we got stuck way back from the stage and couldn’t see him all too well. So, after a couple of songs we went back to the Paid Dues stage for the next performance.

I have never really listened to Immortal Technique too much and I had never seen him live before Paid Dues this year. I was really impressed with his live performance, he had a lot of energy and the crowd was really into it. From the crowd’s reactions, he performed a lot of his fans’ favorite tracks. The only downside to his set was how many other guys he had up on stage with him the whole time. Another cool thing about his set though, was that he brought Chino XL out on stage with him for one song. Unlike all of the other artists, once his set was over, he went off the front of the stage and went straight through the middle of the crowd and told everyone they could meet him in the back afterwards for pictures and autographs.

We were so packed in once his set was over, we decided to stay there and miss the little bit of E-40′s set that was left before Black Star came on to perform. We didn’t stick around for all of Black Star’s set, because it was starting to get late and we wanted to beat the traffic getting out of that place. Although, from what we saw, they were putting on a great show, they had tons of energy up on stage, and they had some really cool mics they were using.

So, overall we all had a really good time this year at Paid Dues. I will definitely be going back next year. Really, my only complaint about the whole festival was that having three stages made it a little harder to see everyone that I wanted to see this year.

Here is a playlist featuring all of the videos that I took this year:

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=ED23C909C72C028D