Last Night's Lauryn Hill and Dave Chappelle Show Was Every Bit the Crazy Last-Minute Idea it Seemed

By Ian S. Port Thu., Apr. 14 2011 at 4:18 PM

Truly a last-minute affair

Everyone's been asking us today: How is it that a Lauryn Hill/Dave Chappelle show actually happened last night, anyway? And, frankly we wondered ourselves -- all we saw beforehand were the announcement Tweets like the rest of you. Being the journalistically inclined folks we are, we passed a few questions to the managers of the New Parish in Oakland, where the show went down, and late this afternoon, got a response.

It turns out that if you thought yesterday's show announcement was last-minute, you aren't alone. In fact, the very idea of the event wasn't even born until Wednesday morning.

According to our source at the New Parish, the plot began with a phone call from Dave Chappelle late Wednesday morning suggesting a joint show with Hill. The whole thing was his suggestion; he flew out yesterday from Springfield, Ohio, for the performance. (As our sister blog, the Exhibitionist, has reported, Chappelle is performing again tonight, and we're hearing rumors that he'll be doing other Bay Area shows this weekend.)

Though everyone liked the idea -- Hill and Chappelle are mutual fans -- the show was still a crossed-fingers hope throughout most of yesterday, as the parties scrambled to finalize contracts and acquire equipment. Hill's band insisted on getting an entirely new P.A. for the intimate performance -- which made things interesting, considering the New Parish had another band, Titus Andronicus, playing a normal evening spot before the late-night show. After that set, the venue's sound engineer, Daniel Samms, and its production manager, Steve Baiocchi, had to replace the whole sound system. (And despite this, Hill still complained about the sound throughout.)

The venue also had to deal with staying open late -- which it did by requesting a special permit from the Oakland police yesterday afternoon, just in case the plan worked out.

By 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, according to our source, the contracts all came back and the show was a done deal. Dave was on a plane from Ohio. And of course at 5:30, the New Parish sent out a Tweet announcing the surprise show. If you still don't know what happened after that, read our recap of the show itself.

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Location Info

Venue

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The New Parish

579 18th St., Oakland, CA

Category: Music

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Tags:

Dave Chappelle, Lauryn Hill, surprises, The New Parish

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Dumb Shit

This whole story is whack and not credible. Get your facts straight before you put something out.

Porky

The show went down because the pig said so @

Oink

Isis

The shitty sound was the club's fault. End of story. It needs to be prepared to handle all types of equipment in this day and age. For God's sake it didn't have the proper ports for some of the computer tech for the DJ. She had a damn right to complain when someone asks her to do a last minute gig. She didn't beg to do it. The show was still good but this was not Lauryn's fault so don't even try to blame her.

Porky

They should switch up to old school....... " Marshal Stacks" ........ and that should do the trick @

The sound in the New Parish sucked. It usually does in small clubs, and it's hard to blame the club entirely given the circumstances, but reading between the lines it's hard not to read your post as: "We only were able to find a single source for our story, and as that source worked at the club, their primary goal in talking to us was to cover their own asses for the sound of the show being so shitty."

Porky

The New Parish is one of the most top of the line new club around in the Oak-Town @

You should see it on a night when it is some jazz or pop rock group and then you might have a different impression then.