The GZA, aka the Genius, came to Richards on Richards last night and the Ws were raised.

I have been waiting for a Wu-Tang show since Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) came out back in 1993. The Genius released his first solo album Liquid Swords in 1995, a masterpiece that’s definitely in my top 10 best hip-hop albums.

I thought I would never hear that album played live, since the members of the Wu-Tang rarely come to Canada. My wish came true when I heard a couple of months ago that the GZA was coming to Vancouver and he was to perform the Liquid Swords album in its entirety. I couldn’t believe it.

I got to the show at 10 o’clock and thought there would be an opening act. There was, but not exactly what I thought. The opener was Paul Devro, a local DJ that spun a ton of old hip-hop favourites. This was good for a while but the clock kept ticking, the bar got hotter and smokier and by 11:30 the crowd started getting restless with some pushing and boos. And some guy chanting, “Geeeza, Geeeza!”

Finally, at midnight we heard behind the stage-door entrance, “diversify your bonds (a Chappelle show joke)….. Let’s hear it Vancouver!” He came on-stage and the crowd threw Ws in the air.

The GZA started out with Liquid Swords, the title track from the album. The crowd was into it and the GZA didn’t miss a beat. Well, actually he missed a couple of rhymes. Not too noticeable and it was forgiven because most of the verses he spat with perfection.

At one point he hopped off the stage and went into the middle of the crowd and rapped for a bit. Once he got back on stage he gave a message to Method Man (another Wu member) about how Meth wasn’t the only one that went into the crowd, the GZA, “wasn’t going to jump into that mothafucker!”

The Genius did the whole album and sprinkled it with new stuff, a tribute to the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, aka Dirt McGirt, and he also did some of his best verses from older Wu albums.

Although the show started late, GZA came through and gave the fans everything he had. We will never see the whole Wu-Tang Clan together on-stage, but this was the next best thing. I am so glad I went to hear it live.