Eminem Brings His Circus Life To The Anger Management Tour

NEW YORK (Eminem Fans Website) - Quite appropriately, the two-month long Anger Management Tour, which hit the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Mass., on Saturday (July 27) night, finds Eminem performing in front of a stage set that is a vibrantly ironic carnival mock-up. Eminem's life as hip-hop's most famous, most angry, dysfunctional figure is, after all, a circus hung with all of its pathos.

The bill was opened by newcomers Bionic Jive, and later included Papa Roach, Ludacris, and Xzibit, while the X-Ecutioners appeared spinning and scratching at the decks in between each set. However, it was Eminem's slickly delivered mix of songs, culled mostly from his third power-selling CD, The Eminem Show, that was the keenly felt focus.

A video collage that showed public figures (Lynne Cheney, Joseph Lieberman, and C. Dolores Tucker, et al.) vehemently denouncing Eminem as influencing kids to drug abuse and violence introduced the controversial rapper's performance. The young audience lapped it up, pleased to be in league with music's latest satanic majesty.

Ultimately though, the video promoted not the idea of a generation gap, but one between politicians and people. Though any point that, like Johnny Rotten or even Charles Dickens, Eminem was writing about, reflecting society and the times, was as lost on the kids as it is on the powers that be. The former wanted Eminem no matter what he was promoting.

Dressed in a sunny yellow T-shirt and cap, which he later swapped for a do-rag made out of an American flag, Eminem rapped with regal cool, when his voice wasn't lost in the beats and bass. And at their best, when Eminem's nasally repartee flew among the varied tones of his backing crew, D12, the posse interacted with the well-rehearsed precision and soulful harmony of an acappella group.

"White America" was pounded out with due vitriol; "Kill You" was a lighthearted audience sing-along; and the ethereal melody and mesmerizing slow-dripping beat of "Stan" was once again captivating. Another melodic moment, "Cleaning Out My Closet" momentarily dropped Eminem's role as the world's leading and most pissed-off MC for that of actual singer, albeit one with a sharp axe to grind.

A thread of seriousness and reflection ran through Papa Roach's anguish laden set. Singer Jacoby Shaddix informed the audience that materialism should be nixed for a more soulful existence, and at one point he jumped in the pit kissing and hugging at length. The all-black clad quartet performed songs from its two CDs, concentrating on the stadium stomping rock of its just-released lovehatetragedy.

It was an older song, "Last Resort," that formed a passionate finale though. His head bowed, Shaddix's voice was full of anger and ache as he uttered an exhausted plea that was acknowledged by a stadium full of happy concertgoers singing along.

That was in sharp contrast to the sets from Ludacris' and Xzibit - like Eminem and Papa Roach, Xzibit also played the first Anger Management Tour in 2000 - who had hollered, cajoled, and sweated the crowd into places of passion that left them running willingly for the headliners.