The I-40 wind blew through hair and a favorite CD, “God Loves Ugly,” bumped through my car speakers, nostalgically bringing back memories of a night in San Bernardino, CA, a little more than a month ago.

I was standing in front of the Paid Dues Stage of the Rock the Bells summer tour, where tens of thousands of fans were behind me on the dry, trampled grass that extended up the hill. U.S. Military and San Bernardino Sheriff helicopters circled the crowd, who blew fragrant smoke up at them and extended their middle fingers.

The sun was down and the heat finally fell below 100, and a white rapper was flowing to a song I had never heard. His voice sounded familiar, agonized and self-reflective.

He called himself Sean (Slug) and introduced his producer, the well-dressed, pony-tailed gentleman that was bobbing his head in the back and smoking cigarettes, as Anthony (Ant). I had a suspicion of their identity, but the band I thought they were with, a Minneapolis, MN based partnership called Atmosphere, wasn’t listed on the tour.

Then a familiar song, “Modern Man’s Hustle” from Atmosphere’s album “God Loves Ugly,” started playing and the crowd screamed wildly. For the next forty-five minutes I stood there, gladly missing performances by Public Enemy and The Roots on the main stage.

An exit sign for Carrboro, NC brought my attention back to the present. I was trying to find The Cat’s Cradle, a small, inconspicuous venue, located in the corner of a shopping plaza. I was about to see Atmosphere, once again, in concert.

After walking in past the congregating crowds, tour busses, and poster-specked exterior, I watched UNC students gather in front of the stage.
Then a large, African-American man walked out wearing flamboyant white goggles, reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio in “The Aviator.” Behind him was a large curtain backdrop with a picture of a smiling, blindfolded clown cradling a joint in his lips.

“My name is LuckIam, from the Living Legends crew,” the man said, “and this is the Everybody Loves a Clown tour!”

A song started that I recognized from the opening credits of the Showtime series Weeds, and LuckIam sang along into his microphone, “And there’s DJs and there’s rappers and business executives, and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky and they all sound just the same.”

It became a motif for the night, and each artist that came up spoke out in their own way against the conformity and general “lameness” of today’s radio stations and popular rap songs. The third act, a Kansas based rapper named Mac Lethal, performed hard-hitting anti-pop songs, proclaiming a strong disgust for artists like T-Pain and Fergie. Later he brought out other performers, including LuckIam, and danced to the Soulja Boy song “Crank That” before saying, “Anyone who likes that song get the f— out now!”

LuckIam then brought out a video camera and, while Mac Lethal sang, proclaimed himself “a make out bandit” and filmed strangers kissing each other in the crowd. He then jumped off the stage, grabbed an unsuspecting blonde girl, and kissed her.

Soon, all of the opening acts finished and faint catcalls of “Atmosphere!” could be heard intermittently throughout the audience.
A friend of mine, senior Johanna Christina, spotted LuckIam behind a curtain a few feet behind us and introduced herself as “the president of the magazine club.” She asked him for an interview or, at the very least, if she could wear his goggles.

“If you make out with me,” he replied. She came scurrying back to the crowd to wait, goggle-less.

It was getting close to midnight when the stage lights finally dimmed and the same, haunted figure and his pony-tailed sidekick walked out that I had seen in California. They were accompanied onstage by a live band, bringing a more vibrant, improvised feel to the music.

Slug announced that he was going to play several new songs and, for what seemed like hours, he mixed classics with the new songs and kept the audience jumping, screaming, and dancing until 1 a.m.

He stopped, periodically, to wipe away the sweat that was raining down from his hair or to pull a hat from an open suitcase on the side of the stage. At one point he put on a police cap, reminding me of The Village People, before jumping into a song about police brutality during a routine traffic stop.

Eventually, his black t-shirt was drenched in sweat and, instead of doing the usual encore act of marching off and returning to triumphant applause, decided to skip the formalities and just do it.

His last song was one of my all-time favorites, “Always Coming Back Home to You,” a dark, poetic story about a late night run in with a scared teenager holding a pistol, a weapon dubbed by Slug as “the poor man’s machete.”

The show was over and, as we left, Mac Lethal was signing autographs behind the merchandise counter, LuckIam was probably with his latest make out victim, and we spotted Ant standing in the parking lot with a small crowd of affectionate looking women. I approached him and asked if he’d let me take his picture.

Ant agreed, and when he looked down at the Atmosphere shirt I had just bought a smile crept across his face.

“Do you like my shirt?” I asked.

“Of course I do,” he said, the smile getting bigger. “That is my dream, right there.”