Tie rags round your neck and learn the sets we throw (a guide to hip hop shows).

It's really been a while since the supermegafunteam has hit up a good hip hop show, but we've been to more than a few in the past. Every Calgary show is a little different, but there are some things that remain the same every single time:

1. The show will always start ridiculously late. This means that if the doors open at 8, the opening act will hit the stage at 11, and the real show doesn't start until 1:30. Due to the long wait periods (and the drinking and dancing that takes place while waiting), the majority of my memories of shows are not as clear as I'd like them to be.

2. There's always going to be a couple making out the entire show, and the male half (who will be wearing some sort of sleeveless shirt) will later get in some sort of ridiculous fight near the end of the night.

3. At least three-quarters of the crowd will be drinking imported beer (I don't know why, but dudes that love hip hop seem to really love Heineken and Red Stripe). The rest will be drinking cheapies (usually students, "writers", and the opening acts). Now, I'm a fan of hard liquor myself, but that's quite a rarity at shows.

4. There will be an asian guy that knows all of the words to every single song. Seriously, as soon as you get to a show, look around the sides of the stage. He'll be there. The guy'll know the words to everything, including all of those obscure remixes where they switch up the words in a song.

5. There will be about seven girls that are there to actually watch the show. The rest of the girls will stand by their boyfriends with their phones in their hands, and yawn a lot.

6. At some point, someone will try to start up some sort of dancing circle. If you have a good crowd, that circle will never amalgamate into anything. It's not cool to just stand against the wall either, but most people are there to watch the show, and not there to watch some lame kid in New Balances repeatedly attempt to do head-spins.

7. Everybody's got to go to their very first show sometime in their lives.... First-timers are usually wearing an expensive outfit that they picked out weeks ago, and spend the whole night on the phone re-assuring their moms that they promise they'll meet them outside in the station wagon at 12:30 sharp.

8. When the headliner finally gets on the fucking stage, the set will be way shorter than anyone would ever like.

9. Out of the seven or so girls that are there to actually listen to the music, at least one of them will want to sleep with the headliner. Gradually, throughout the evening, she will inch up until she's close enough to casually rest her ass on the stage. The rest, as they say, is history.... Getting a rapper to sleep with you is not rocket science.

10. I swear, before any hip hop show at any venue, the managers must give security some sort of pep-talk about being extra dick-ish. Although a good chunk of most hip hop crowds are way too stoned to ever think about getting violent, security likes to pretend that Calgary kids carry guns, and they know how to use them (which is not true... Unless you're in the Northeast, of course).

~sarah p.