I don’t even know where to begin with the show Busta Rhymes put on. He was so incredibly good. And he performed songs from all over his entire 17 year career. At one point the crowd was asked who has been with Busta from day one? Who were the “true” fans? Then as a test to see who was telling the truth, he busted into “Woo Hah” and the crowd exploded. Oh, but he wasn’t done there. After that he took it super old school with one he did with A Tribe Called Quest and one of my favorites, “Scenario”. I could hardly believe my ears.

Busta Rhymes grew up in New York so you could tell this wasn’t just another show. He was having a good time and he had Spliff Starr alongside him who was having just as much fun. The joking around and interaction that they had on stage had the crowd cracking up in between dancing and singing along. They had everyone “put on their headphones” and then urged us all to jump. You could feel the balcony shaking from the number of Sidekick VIP upstairs jumping to the thumping bass. Oh, and the bass… I’m a sucker for some strong bass, and they definitely had the speakers hitting hard. The entire building was shaking with each percussive blast. Like Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes had a more relaxed and unrehearsed sort of show. He’d be doing a song and then when he got tired of the song, he’d just stop whenever he felt like it. His reasoning? “I’ve got hits.” You can’t argue with that.

The most memorable part of the show was him pulling out the bottle of Courvoisier and instead of passing it, he literally poured it into a lucky fan’s mouth. I guess this is one of the benefits of being in the front row!

After Busta Rhymes and Spliff Starr left the stage to a thundering applause and screaming, we snuck off to the after-party at the Marquee club. Private table, bottle service, and a long night of dancing with T-Mobile, the VIP winners, and fellow bloggers (Crunchgear’s Peter Ha and Eric from Phonescoop). It was getting close to 4am when the club finally started clearing out, so I was off to bed for a couple hours sleep before my flight home. Whew… what a trip. One more to go for me! Next stop Miami!

-Ed