J5 at Easy Street Records, Seattle, WA

     The Pacific Northwest showed their love for Jurassic 5 October 17-20, 2002 by selling out all four shows and packing Easy Street Records during an autograph session with the group. The Northwest leg of the tour started being only three shows but Vancouver B.C. added one more Sunday, October 20, 2002 due to the overwhelming ticket sales of the first Vancouver B.C. show on October 18, 2002.As always, Jurassic 5 remained dedicated to their live shows: energetic, tightly performed, can't-miss affairs that emanate infectious vibes throughout the crowd which contained people of all ages and races bounded together to hear the newst hits from J5.

                Portland, Oregon started off the Northwest leg of the tour at the Crystal Ballroom with Seattle’s own Boom Bap Project. The crowd went wild for Boom Bap Project and roared through the hour long performance of Jurassic 5, who  performed hits from their first album Quality Control which they got the crowd going  with the top single of the same title Quality Control. Of course the favorite of the sold out show seemed to be  What’s Golden from the Power in Number album released this fall nationwide.

                Saturday, October 19, 2002 was Seattle’s time to shine showing just how much love for J5 is here. The show sold out over a week before the show happened. Skillz opened the all age show with a 45 minute set. The crowd went wild for him especially when he stopped a few times  to interact with the crowd by asking hip hop trivia. Skillz is one artist who knows what is takes to get the crowd going and keep up the vibe through his whole show. At 8 pm Jurassic 5 entered the stage and gave all they had for the next 90 minutes. They even slowed it down a bit with their new ladies song (CAN SOMEONE HELP ME WITH THE NAME OF IT PLEASE). “This one goes out to all the ladies in the house, guys this is your time to go get a drink”, exclaimed Marc 7. Jurassic 5 even stayed around after their set and freestlyed with Skillz for the crowd. The price of the tickets many people at Showbox said as well worth the show which was over two hours long.

                “The set was off the hook... 25 songs! The DJ solo was great. The crowd was perfect... loud as shit from beginning to end. They were supposed to leave at the end, but they stuck around and freestyled for a while cause we were such a tight audience! Haha, gotta love it!”, a patron shouted to Sea Spot after the show.
                Akil (one of the four emsees of J5) said to Seaspot, “I love the crowd in the Northwest, they show us so much love when we come through. People of all ages and races come out to see us and it just gets us pumped up to do the best show we can.” Which in this case at all the shows here in the Northwest led the group to go at least 15 minutes over time by adding more songs to the show then previously done in other areas.

                Sunday J5 even stayed around in Seattle to stop by Easy Street Records and do an autograph signing for the fans. The in-store visit which was packed with people lined out the door was supposed to be only one hour but as any J5 fan knows they do what they need for the fans and stayed an extra 45 minutes to make sure every there got a chance to at leats say and grab a signature from all of the six members.

                When asked why Jurassic 5 for a group with 6 members in it, Chai 2na replied, “my mom made a remark about how we are bring back hip hop sounds from back in the day like the movies brought  back dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, we though that was funny but we didn’t like Jurassic 6 didn’t feel right so we went with Jurassic 5.”

                Well Jurassic 5 has done very well with 4 emsees and 2 Dj’s. They’re “bring it back to the days the days of yes ya’llin’”  which so far has been a huge hit with fans worldwide.

- Noni Cavaliere