Recap Eyedea And Abilities and Dosh at High Noon Saloon

After a goofy attempt to rile the audience for a set from Twin Cities hip-hop duo Eyedea And Abilities at the High Noon Saloon on Saturday, local promoter Gary Knowledge passed the mic to Eyedea and told him to “kill some time” while DJ Abilities got ready. “Hello beautiful people of Madison, my name is Michael,” he said, with a definite hint of sarcasm. After a hearty dose of rambling, Abilities was ready to go and the duo launched into “Smile” from 2009’s By The Throat. “I’m falling/ But no matter how hard I hit the ground/ I’ll still smile,” sung Eyedea, whose jet-black hair, moustache, and cardigan made him look like a creepy hybrid of Dave Grohl and Ringo Starr.

One of the set’s highlights came early in the form of “Glass,” an eerie marriage of haunting piano samples, dub, and an awesome dose of live turntablism from Abilities. Meanwhile, clad in a cardigan and a homemade T-shirt that read “I Spooned Dosh,” Eyedea got the crowd’s arms waving as he spun around, jumped into the crowd, and riffed over the beat with frantic energy and expert timing. “So, uh, DJ Abilities is changing his name to DJ Always Needs McDonald’s With Subway,” Eyedea informed concertgoers. Sonically, the set only hit one real sour point, and that’s “Spin Cycle,” Eyedea’s angst-ridden and ill-advised attempt at off-key, Bono-lite crooning.

Throughout the evening, Eyedea became increasingly cranky with the audience. “Stop with the fucking beers already!” Eyedea screamed at the crowd members who kept putting drinks onstage for him. “Keep that off my fucking stage, or I’m just going to kick them over and you’ll be broke.” At another point, people began using the front of the stage as a coat rack, covering Eyedea’s mic cable and limiting his mobility. “What the fuck is this shit? Who the fuck does this one belong to? If you don’t claim it, I’m just gonna throw it.” The biggest freak-out came when some idiot interrupted an a cappella with the chant, “you-and-me, smoke-some-weed!” “Dude! Shut the fuck up! I’m trying to cut myself open and bleed into your mouth and all you care about is smoking weed!” And that’s when Eyedea ran over, physically pulled the kid onstage, handed over his microphone, and screamed “it’s your show now!” The emcee stood at the side of the stage with his arms crossed as the interrupter encouraged everyone to “smoke some weed,” until Eyedea finally grabbed the mic back an finished his a cappella,

The set stretched all the way back to 2001’s First Born, but pulled largely from 2009’s By The Throat. For the duo's encore, tour-opener Martin Dosh joined the duo onstage for a lengthy freestyle, before Eyedea thanked the crowd and walked offstage.

Speaking of Dosh, his opening set was a brilliant exercise in sonic fortress-building. Armed with two samplers, a flurry of pedals, a Fender Rhodes piano, and a modest drum kit, Dosh was able to recreate the lush melodies and jazzy grooves of his recorded work while maintaining all of the songs’ complex dynamics. Each tune seemed to be glued together by specific sonic quirks. During “Lost Take,” Dosh strategically hammered away at the guts of his Rhodes to create chirping melodies, while “Steve The Cat” found Dosh running percussive vocal sounds through a series of pedals. The crowd went batshit when Eyedea jumped onstage with Dosh for “Simple Exercises.” “What could I possibly play after that?” Dosh asked the audience. Dosh closed the gates to his orchestral tower with a new song titled “Gare De Lyon,” before thanking the audience.