Rock the Bells is a 2007 documentary about promotor Chang Weisberg’s nightmare of a concert which attempted to bring together the Wutang for a final reunion show.
Now I was at a Rock the Bells concert with Noah in NY back in 2007, this however is about the first one in 2004 in LA. The lineup consised of Wu-Tang, Redman, Dilated, Sage Francis, Supernatural and on and on and on. Naturally there’s some good concert footage of the supporting acts, but the real focus is on Wu-Tang and the logistics of putting on a much anticipated concert in douche bag city.
The doc's kindof gotta home-spun feel to it, with lots of, what I would imagine was, B roll making it into the final cut. I’m guessing the reason was a lot of it was classic shit was shot, like Redman on the phone refusing to do any interviews b/c the promoter didn’t greet him at the airport him with a bag of weed. Or the two Wu Tang roadies with vaguely familiar names talking shit to the camera.
Man, what a nightmare though, I don’t want to say much about what transpires but there’s definately a part where ODB is locked in a hotel with what was discribed as “7 crack rocks.”
One review on rotten tomatoes said this flick is a combination of celebration of hiphop culture and disaster film. I think that’s about right. Check it out, it’s a wild story.
One last thing, if you look at the Rock the Bells Wikipidia page, there’s a note in the reference seciton which I’ll quote directly:
"Tickets and Lineups...Problems cited include: weather and scheduling conflicts. However, it was later revealed that the real reason for cancellation was that Chang (promoter) had too many
penises in his butt at the time."
That last line made me laugh. Check out this flick though, it's pretty dope...and I think it's the last footage of ODB before his death.
