Line-up

Headliner
The Pharcyde Last time in Birmingham: 29 years ago

Venue

Iron City

513 22nd St. S., 35233, Birmingham, AL, US

ironcitybham.com/

Capacity: 1,300

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Additional details

Doors open: 20:00

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The Pharcyde biography

Formed in 1989, The Pharcyde, from Los Angeles, California is an alt. hip-hop group, best known for “Drop”, “Runnin” and “Passin’ Me By”.

Pharcyde came together in the late 1980s as a group of dancers, and recorded a demo in 1991 that featured the tracks “Passin’ Me By” and “Ya Mama”. They drafted in artist management who had previously worked with Cypress Hill and House of Pain. Fortunately the demo landed in the hands of Mike Ross from Delicious Vinyl, who signed the group to his label in 1991.

The group recorded their debut album “Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde” and released it on November 24th 1992; the album earned Gold certification by the RIAA in 1996 in addition to having already earned plenty of critical acclaim. Their single, “Passin’ Me By” peaked at number 52 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the song made it to the soundtrack of the movie, Big Daddy. Following the release, of the album, the band managed to make the line up of the Lollapalooza festival in 1994. It was around this time that the band also earned the “Album of the Year” title from Time Magazine.

With one hit record already under their belts, it was time for the release of another one. This time it was “Labcabincalifornia”, which was released on November 14th 1995. They had a video directed by film producer and director, Spike Jonze for the song “Drop” which made it to number 5 on the Hot Rap Singles Chart, whilst the album made it to number 37 on the Billboard 200.

On November 7th 2000, the band released their third full-length studio album entitled “Plain Rap” which unfortunately didn’t chart as high as the previous two albums, but the single “Trust” did make it to number 15 in the US Rap Charts.

Live reviews

This one’s a little bit complicated, so you might have to bear with me; there are effectively two different iterations of The Pharcyde currently touring and playing shows. The first, under the original name, is comprised of Imani and Bootie Brown, and they sporadically play gigs, including a handful of European festivals this summer. The other version of The Pharcyde - and the one I’ll focus on here - involves the other two original members, Fatlip and Slimkid3, who played the group’s seminal Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde record in its entirety at The Roxy in Los Angeles two years ago, and found it to be such a success that they’ve since taken the show on the road. Flanked by the record’s producers, J-Swift and L.A. Jay, and performing in front of a modest video screen, the pair deliver an affectionate tribute to the album that saw them break through into the mainstream, with plentiful crowd interaction and thrillingly energetic renditions of the likes of ‘Oh Shit’ and ‘Passin’ Me By’. Granted, this isn’t officially The Pharcyde, and perhaps it’s a tad disingenuous to label the shows as such, but I can’t imagine there’s been too much in the way of post-show demands for refunds; Fatlip and Slimkid3 are well-versed in the art of showing the crowd a good time, and that’s ultimately all that matters.

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