The Roots take Manhattan by storm

My favorite Hip Hop band, the Roots, and probably best musical live show ever, are taking NYC by storm...a really good article and pics...

The Roots Take Manhattan
Meet the new kings of late-night, God (and Jimmy Fallon) willing
By Rob Harvilla
Tuesday, February 24th 2009 at 4:02pm
Chad Griffith

Now let's just hope their new boss is funny. More photos of the Roots and the set here.

The Roots, perhaps hip-hop's most deified live act—and an increasingly rare sure-thing concert draw for a desperately flailing music industry—have now largely confined their tour bus route to the lonely 100 miles or so between Philly and New York City, there and back again four or five times a week, having tied their future success and viability to Jimmy Fallon's decidedly unproven skills as a late-night talk-show host.

This is a time of great possibility and profound terror.

Late Monday/early Tuesday, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon will premiere on NBC: The Saturday Night Live alum is replacing Conan O'Brien, who is replacing Jay Leno, who is jumping to an unprecedented prime-time slot as part of a bizarre internal fiasco you're better off avoiding entirely—except the Roots did not, as they have agreed to be Fallon's house band. Doc Severinsen begot Paul Shaffer begot Max Weinberg begot ?uestlove (a/k/a Ahmir Thompson), the Roots' drummer and bandleader, who now sits with rapper Black Thought (a/k/a Tariq Trotter) in a Manhattan recording/rehearsal studio, a scene from the imminent Fame remake being shot right outside, acknowledging the fact that Jimmy's quest for greatness and longevity is far from assured.

?uestlove: "It's a concern."

Black Thought: "Yeah, it's definitely a concern, but I wouldn't call it a worry. It's a concern. We're all putting forth the best effort to make sure he's the next Conan and not the next . . ."

"Chevy."

"I'm not gonna say . . ."

"Magic."

"Yes."

"Joan."

"Right. The list goes on and on."

"Whoopi."

"Whoopi, I was gonna say next—the list goes on and on," Black Thought allows. "It's definitely an everyday, ongoing thing of trying to figure out what is gonna set this show apart from all these late-night shows that flopped or whatever."

"NBC's very committed—they're very excited," ?uestlove adds. "Watching it yesterday on the monitor, I see this as a staple. I don't see this as a Pat Sajak Hour."

It was actually the Pat Sajak Show, but who cares, really? The Late-Night Graveyard is a terrible and dangerously overloaded place, and however affable and likable Fallon may be, the notion that the dude perhaps best known for biting his drumsticks in a failed attempt to stop himself from cracking up during the SNL "more cowbell" sketch will now prevail over the next great witching-hour empire is, not a stretch exactly, but a roll of the dice, a leap of faith—pick your cliché, atheistic or devout.

The Roots are here to help. With apologies to Sheila E. (she of The Magic Hour, RIP, June to September, 1998), they're easily the most established and revered musical entity to go the talk-show-band route, with eight studio albums (including last year's fantastically surly Rising Down) and nearly 20 years of nonstop touring to their credit, their status as tireless, peerless globe-trotters pounding out two-hour-plus concert spectaculars beyond dispute. But that's just the thing. Consider the possibility that they're tired, and consider the draw of something a bit more stable, or at least somewhat stationary.

"This is the beginning of a new phase," Black Thought says. "I don't know, we may have different opinions on this, but I definitely don't look at this like the end of the Roots, the end of touring. A lot of people are like, 'Aw, yeah, you guys retired.' We're, we're—no. No. It's just, we're gonna be touring like a normal, human band now."