Vinnie Paz and Army of The Pharaohs @ Union Transfer.

Text and image by Chris Malo.

The line outside of Union Transfer Friday night was long. Like, long-long. City blocks long. Fans lined up hours before the doors opened at 8 p.m. to see the supergroup Army of Pharaohs, fronted by Philadelphia’s own Vinnie Paz.

Union Transfer had 30 minutes from when the doors opened until the first act took the stage at 8:30 (the venue had a quick turnaround for a second show at 11:30 p.m. with RL Grime and Salva), so people were still being shuffled in as  Blacastan started off the evening with Stress handing DJ duties.

What followed was a seamless procession of MCs gracing the stage for the packed house of die-hard fans. Following Blacastan, Planetary and Crypt the Warchild (better known as OuterSpace) rocked mics. Keeping with the Philly flow, Reef the Lost Cauze brought his insane energy to the stage. And as usual, the crowd responded right back.

Adlib took his turn before fellow AOTPer Apathy came out for a few tracks, as did King Magnetic. Apathy proceeded to stay on stage and was joined by fellow Demigodz member Celf Titled. Boston was officially in the building when 7L and Esoteric gave the fans a handful of tracks. And at some point, the legendary DJ Too Tuff (please act like you know) wandered on stage to take in the evening’s festivities.

Eventually DJ Kwestion manned the turntables, the character representing Jedi Mind Tricks was projected onto the DJ set-up, and the intro for Vinnie Paz played. Rocking an army jacket and a mandatory Philadelphia skully, the sold-out crowd went into a frenzy as Paz tore through a set filled with tracks off solo projects and JMT classics, before the rest of the AOTP conglomerate (including Doap Nixon and Demoz)  joined in to rock the stage. The 5 mics on stage weren’t enough for the 10+ rappers, so they traded off as a clearly elated and grateful Paz took sips from a plastic cup, danced and politicked with his brethren as a huge mosh pit formed in the middle of the floor.

Forced to shut things down shortly after 11 p.m., a humbled Paz thanked the fans, some of whom had traveled from as far away as Phoenix and others who drove 14 hours just to catch the show. With fans like that, they might even show up at one of Paz’s European tour dates. And they would not be disappointed.