MUSIC: Weekend concert round-up, from Nas to Steve Miller

    Like a politician whose campaign vows turn out to be as empty as the bellies of his neediest constituents, hip-hop’s promises occasionally go unfulfilled.
    A genre born of social consciousness sometimes dumbs itself down until it speaks to little more than strip club patrons.  
    But this wasn’t the case at the House of Blues on Friday, when ace NYC rhymers Nas and Talib Kweli demonstrated that mainstream appeal and heated politicking aren’t mutually exclusive. 
    “People are afraid of criticism,” Nas rhymed on a set-opening “N.I.G.G.E.R. (The Slave and the Master).” “But I always put myself in a sacrificial position. They know I ain’t just rappin’ for fame.”
    And he lived up to his words, intermingling barbed missives directed at Fox News (“Sly Fox”) with sing-along radio hits (“If I Ruled The World”) and scalding critiques of the very genre that he’s made his name in (“Hip-Hop is Dead”).
    Gripping the mic like was strangling some mortal foe, Nas stalked the stage with poise and confidence, voice booming through the venue, flaunting his defiance like the diamonds on his wrist. 
    “I don’t like being quiet,” he growled at one point, a rare moment of understatement from a dude whose views tend to be as outsized as his record sales.
    For his part, Talib Kweli was just as compelling. Gifted at wrapping his elastic rhymes around everything from near-pop hits to much murkier, street-hardened terrain, Kweli also bridges the divide between the progressive commentary of the indie hip-hop ranks and the populist thrust of chart-topping rap.   
    Nowhere was this more evident than on a raucous “Get By,” Kweli’s biggest hit, which the crowd sang along to lustily.
    “We survivalists,” he announced at one point, letting everyone know that real hip-hop won’t be going the way of the buffalo any time soon.  
   
    “Somebody get me a cheeseburger,” Steve Miller commanded at the end of a smokin’ “Livin’ in the U.S.A.,” a song as American as, well, greasy meats apparently.
    Steve Miller gigs have become as much a rite of summer as family barbeques and heat stroke. And, unlike your drunk uncle, they never seem to get old.
    Despite Miller’s omnipresence on classic rock radio, live, his catalog takes on a different bent, and Miller’s blues background becomes much more palpable.
       Buffering his tunes with fiery harmonica jams, extended organ workouts and sax solos while also flexing his muscles as a greatly underrated guitarist, Miller’s shows provide the same well-worn kicks as a night at the local tavern.
    At the Orleans Arena on Saturday, the crowd got into the spirit by double-fisting beers and dancing in their seats with their hands over their heads.
    Debuting tunes from a forthcoming album of blues and R&B standards, Miller brought with him Las Vegas staple Sonny Charles, late of the Checkmates, to belt out a slew of chestnuts like “Tramp” and “Hey Yeah” while doing the mashed potato until his shirt was soaked through with sweat.
    And then there were all the hits (“Jet Airliner,” “Abracadabra,” “The Joker,” etc.), enough to stock a jukebox or two.  
    The crowd lapped it all up with as much zeal as they did their brews, both packing the same familiar, welcoming buzz.
    Preceding Miller, Joe Cocker practically writhed out of his flesh during a sweaty 75-minute opening set.
    Cocker’s voice, a cannonball of a gutbucket yowl, is largely undiminished with age, and the 64-year-old is still as animated as ever, leaping in the air and swinging his arms dramatically at the end of nearly every tune.
     No, he never achieved flight, but at least his voice did.