SHOW REVIEW: Juice & The Machine
LOCATION: The Metro, Chicago, IL
Feb 2, 2007

Even though the fateful game was still more than a day away, the overall tenor of Friday’s show at Chicago’s Metro was one of triumph approaching hubris. Equal parts concert and pep rally, each artist who took the stage to celebrate the release of Juice and the Machine’s latest album Live from the Party took every opportunity to show their Chicago love and pump the crowd for Sunday’s Bowl game. It was blatant pandering, but no one in the audience seemed to mind.

Juice and the Machine, a collaboration between Chicago underground legend Juice and jazz fusion outfit The Machine, took the stage after midnight, following a host of largely forgettable opening acts. It’s a combination that works. The group came out of the gate swinging with a jazzed out reworking of "Day in the Life," and never dropped the ball once during the entire hour-long set.

Juice shared vocal duties with former Chicago Idol winner Russoul, whose gospel tenor and vocal acrobatics proved the perfect counterpoint to Juice’s unbroken lyrical assault. Russoul was dressed for Sunday and worked the crowd as well as any Baptist preacher, and when the melody descended into a wild, church-choir break-down during the song "Black," he flailed around the stage like a Pentecostal slain in the spirit.

It’s an impressive collection of talent all around. Saxophonist Aaron Getsug, named one of Chicago’s five finest Jazz musicians by the Tribune, couldn’t have been smoother, and the Machine’s rhythm section, featuring Tim Lincoln on bass and Brian Abraham on drums, kept time unfailingly. One of the most impressive performances of the night, however, was Brian Felix on the keys, who played a stunning solo during "Sincerely." Indeed, "The Machine" is almost an ironic moniker; whereas the other MC’s performed in lock-step to a DJ soundtrack, the smooth, responsive accompaniment spun by The Machine was the very antithesis of mechanistic, proving that even in the world of hip-hop, there’s no substitute for a live, flesh-and-blood band.

They ended the night with a bang, encoring with an anthemic tribute to their beloved city, "Stay Chi." In the song "Sincerely," Juice raps "Sometimes the illest rappers you know don’t get record deals/ Sometimes they underground legends roaming the street." If Friday’s performance is any indication, Juice’s days of roaming the streets are drawing rapidly to a close.