Dom Kennedy at Galaxy Theatre Last Night

Dom Kennedy
Galaxy Theater
Dec. 6, 2011

With the help of his fans, who donned Chucks, Rugby Polo shirts and vintage L.A. sports team fan gear, Leimert Park representative Dom Kennedy brought just another one of those L.A. nights to Santa Ana. The only things missing were tacos to go with the Coronas.

As the kickoff for his West$ide Get the Money tour, Dom enlisted rap duo Audio Push of “Teach Me How to Dougie” fame to give a tutorial and Inglewood's Skeme to warm up the crowd for him.

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Known for his high-energy sets, Skeme delivered on expectations, performing “Swish,” “Ape Shit” and the southern-inspired “Swaggin” off his recently released Before My Next Statement mixtape. The Sox Gang's DJ Goofy pulled his own surprise of the night when, unbeknownst to anyone in the audience (or backstage … or J305 himself for that matter) he dropped “Westside Story,” the debut of Dom's oft-name-checked right-hand-man J305. The club banger stirred up the crowd and served as a curtain call for everyone backstage, who rallied to the stage to catch the moment.

Backed by DJ DrewByrd, who produced “OPM” off From the Westside With Love II and “On the Way Home” from the Original Dom Kennedy mixtape (among others), Dom opened his set with “When I Come Around” and performed hits off his latest project, Westside II, before reaching all the way back to his first single, “Watermelon Sundae.”

Despite the fact that things lagged a little toward the end, when Kennedy segued from the more uptempo songs like “Choose Up” and “CDC” into possibly one too many two-stepping grooves like “Locals Only” and “The Way,” Dom kept the crowd rocking all the way through his finale of his most popular song to date, “1997.”

Last night was clearly a warmup for things to come on his eight-city mini-tour that hits up San Luis Opisbo's SLO Brewing Co. tonight and ends on December 18 at The Music Box in Hollywood.

Critical Bias: I checked into the Dom Kennedy fan club shortly after Future Street/Drug Sounds was released. Although I'm not a total Stan, (WestSide II could've been an EP) Dom is at the top of my list of favorites.

The crowd: Cool kids in their twenties.

Set list below.
[
“When I Come Around”
“Choose Up”
“Grind'N”
“CDC”
“Turn Me Out”
“Bet You Want Me Now”
“Designer Shit”
“The Homies”
“Notorious DOM”
“Watermelon Sundae”
“Still Me”
“Play On”
“Locals Only”
“The Ways”
“I love DOM”
“Dom's Prayer”
“1997”

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