FROM THE BOX: Wu-Tang Clan concert flyer (Labor Day 1995, Atlanta)
First off: I did not go to this concert. I started the Unofficial Wu-Tang Clan Mailing List (U-WU) a month before this show happened, but I was in Georgia for reasons other than music. I went there to meet a woman I had talked with online, but to make a long story short, the friendship fizzled soon after. End of story.
I did not stay in Atlanta but a smaller town south of ATL, but we did spend a few hours in a city I grew up admiring from watching WTCG/WTBS. I was drawn to cable TV, wrestling, cartoons, and old episodes of The Little Rascals, I liked the Atlanta Braves for awhile all because of cable. There was a show on MTV called IRS’ The Cutting Edge, and The Go-Go’s made a stop at a restaurant called The Varsity, where the group were able to eat burritos made and placed on a conveyor belt. This was in the early 80′s and I thought “the day I made it to Atlanta, I will have to stop there.” When I arrived in late August, the first place we stopped at was Varsity. Childhood dream became reality.
Because of the situation I was in, I was not able to visit certain parts of Atlanta that I wanted to. Truth be told, it was my first trip to the South and after hearing stories about how some people were racist and didn’t take too kindly to anyone a darker shade of sheet paper, I worried. Yet when I got there, it wasn’t as bad as I assumed it would be. I was actually more worried about the perception people would have when they saw me with the lady I was with.
Anyway, we’d listen to the radio and there were a few hot songs in the summer of 1995. Method Man‘s remix of “All I Need” with Mary J. Blige was all over the place, but another Wu-related song was hitting the mix tape circuit and I heard it on the radio in Atlanta: the remix of Jodeci‘s “Freek’N'You” with Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. I tried to record one of the radio shows with my Walkman but couldn’t get a good reception. While listening, a Wu-Tang Clan concert was being heavily promoted, as it was a Labor Day show and they were encouraging everyone to head there and end the summer properly.
The scan above is of a flyer I picked up when I bought records at a store called Earwax. I loved the store, for when I walked in, they were playing KRS-One‘s “MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know”. I didn’t buy the 12″ for it, but I did buy Big Kap‘s “Da Ladies In Da House”, Jamiroquai‘s “Space Cowboy”, and I think one by DJ Mister Cee.
When I had seen the flyer, I thought “crap, I’m going to be leaving a few days before this concert, why do I have to leave?” I had wanted to go to Decatur, as I was a huge fan of Yall So Stupid, a group who celebrated their home all over their album Van Full Of Pakistans, but my companion didn’t want to go there so we did not visit Decatur.
Nonetheless, I flew back home to the Pacific Northwest and that was that. I’m clearing out a lot of stuff in my collection and I come across this flyer again. Seeing as it is a Labor Day weekend in the United States, I felt it was the perfect time to post this. Since I was the U-WU guy in 1995, I had a few people from Atlanta who told me that everyone had hoped that everyone listed would show up. Unfortunately, it had become known that even though a concert was being promoted as a Wu-Tang Clan show, you were lucky if more than three members showed up. It would anger people, as the Wu were still very much about the Wu, as in “the group”.
If any of you reading this went to this show, feel free to post your memories about it.
Nonetheless, I would love to visit Atlanta again and truly explore it.
