Wu-Tang Clan have performed the final night of their nearly two-month long Las Vegas residency with a special surprise appearance the crew’s longtime associate Redman.
“Wu-Tang Clan: The Saga Continues … The Las Vegas Residency” closed out at The Theater at Virgin Hotels on Saturday night (March 24), following a 7-week run which kicked off on February 4.
The show went as planned for most of the night, with the crew performing classic hits including “Protect Ya Neck” and C.R.E.A.M. as well as individual tracks hits and smaller posse cuts like Raekwon‘s “Ice Cream,” Ghostface Killah‘s “Cherchez La Ghost” and a handful of Ol’ Dirty Bastard releases performed by his son, Young Dirty Bastard.
The evening’s twist happened when, after delivering the hook on “Ice Cream,” Method Man started diving into his own catalogue. However, Saturday night’s show saw him stop his performance of “All I Need” short before telling the crowd that he wanted to “get their energy up.”
He proceeded to launch into his opening verse of “Da Rockwilder” while still standing on stage alone. However, just as his name appeared on the on-stage screen, fans quickly began realizing that the Redman ad-libs they were hearing were live; and the Funk Doc emerged on cue for verse two as the crowd lost it.
The duo proceeded to perform “Y.O.U.” before reminding the crowd that they were among the earliest Hip Hop stars to loudly proclaim their affinity for marijuana as an intro to their iconic 1995 weed anthem “How High.”
Following the surprise Red & Meth break, the Wu returned to business as usual, with Young Dirty Bastard jumping on stage with the seven living members of the crew who were in attendance (with GZA being the only one missing) closing out the evening with a rendition of “Triumph.”
Check out clips from the show below.
While it has become the most played version of their iconic duet, it seems neither Method Man nor Redman was originally in love with the “How High” remix.
“‘How High,’ Red and Meth wasn’t happy about,” Erick Sermon of the legendary EPMD revealed in an exclusive interview with HipHopDX on February 27.
Sermon specified that he was talking about the remix, which samples the Silver Convention’s 1975 jam “Fly, Robin, Fly.” That version was used in the song’s video.
“I made the original version, which is the hard version. But then when I made it popular with the ‘Fly, Robin, Fly,’ they was pissed. Because they come to the video shoot, and they’re expecting to hear something else, and they hear this so-called ‘commercial pop record.’”
He continued: “Russell [Simmons] and Lyor [Cohen] was there, and they made sure that it get done. […] And it went platinum.”
