Recap G-Side at the High Noon Saloon

With shout-outs in every music publication from NahRight to NPR, it’s easy to forget that G-Side isn’t necessarily a pair of conquering rap stars, roaming the country on its current tour playing to packed arenas. It’s still a young group, building a fan base one hyperlink at a time.

Still, it was surprising that the turnout for the group’s show at the High Noon Saloon Monday was as light as it was; there were, eventually, no more than 75 people in attendance. Granted, it was a Monday night in December at the end of the semester, but The A.V. Club has seen blog-rap hypes like Yelawolf and Big K.R.I.T. bring in huge Madison crowds.

G-Side can’t be blamed for the low turnout though, nor can the group be blamed for the large percentage of the crowd that seemed to be there solely to revel in the dreadful, two-hours-late stylings of local openers Gutta Foundation and Dill—the crowd backed off to an extreme degree before G-Side, with most of it congregating around the bars. Despite this, ST 2 Lettaz and Yung Clova delivered a high-energy and confident set, heavy on their month-old Island album, along with a handful of cuts from January’s The One…Cohesive. Backed by two golden-voiced backup singers and a laptop DJ, G-Side performed faithful takes of standouts like “No U In Us,” “StayCation,” and “Recognize.” The highlight was a visceral “16 Shots,” a song that’s key chorus line—“16 shots, that’s real rap”—was delivered as a challenge, a sermon, and a plea.

But not even a remix of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s mega-huge “Ni**as In Paris” could get the crowd onboard. It’s not that hard to see why, in context: On record, G-Side’s music is so lush, so well conceived, so total package that it’s not necessarily conducive for turning unwilling newbies into converts in a live setting. G-Side trades in blue collar rap, its members speaking about the struggle to make something of themselves despite being stuck in Huntsville, Alabama. The group is just as likely to rap about how crazy it is that it regularly gets booked in Norway as it is to rap about working at a Chevron. When the crowd was willing on Monday night, G-Side delivered those tales of working a 9-to-5 and trying to carve out a space for itself. When the crowd was less than accepting, G-Side did the same anyway.