Talib Kweli’s show at the Crystal last night would have been great, I suspect, if it weren’t for two things. Okay, wait, hold up a sec: We’ve written about Talib Kweli a few times in the paper before (here and here); I think we can agree the guy can be pretty amazing. But the show last night wasn’t so amazing.

First, the sound at the Crystal—I know, yeah, it’s always pretty crappy there, but last night it was ridiculous, the aural equivalent of turning the static on a television up to full blast and laying a super-fuzzy beat behind it. That’s the second show I’ve been to at the Crystal where the muddy, broken sound has just flat-out ruined the whole deal. I don’t know if it’s a capacity thing or a bass thing or what, ‘cause I’ve seen good-sounding shows there (Built to Spill) and I’ve heard horrible-sounding shows there (Of Montreal), and there’s seemingly no way to tell who’s going to be listenable or who might as well be shouting into a megaphone and playing a Sax-o-boom. (More confusion: It wasn’t great, but the sound was at least passable last time he came through.)

But the second thing was actually way more annoying: At least 15-20 times, Talib Kweli told his near-capacity crowd about his album that comes out on Tuesday. Honestly, it was like before every song, after every song, whenever he had two seconds to spare, he was urging us all to go out and get the album on August 21 (see, I even have the date memorized). This wasn’t helped by the fact that for almost every single song, corresponding album covers were projected up behind his DJ—so just in case you were wondering on which album you could find the song he was doing, there it was, projected ten feet tall above the stage. (Cue Talib Kweli letting the crowd know that this particular track was off of his album with Mad Lib, which they had for sale right over there, and also, his new album drops Tuesday August 21, just in case you were wondering.)

While Talib Kweli’s never had the popularity of some of his collaborators, and likely never will, I still figured the dude was doing alright—the Crystal was packed last night, and everyone who’s into hiphop (and a few people who aren’t) know who the dude is. He gets a lot of respect and, I would think, at least decent album/ticket sales. But jesus, if I didn’t know better last night, I’d think that the guy had loan collectors after him or something, or that he’d made a deal with the devil that unless his new album (out August 21!) sells a billion copies when it comes out (it drops August 21!), he’s gonna lose his soul or something (probably on August 21, which while we’re talking about it, is the same day that his new album comes out—pick it up!). It was just overkill, and annoying, and fairly insulting, but mostly, and combined with the sound problems, it was really, really tiresome. If my ears are gonna be ringing/numb the whole next day after I go to a show, I wish I could remember something more about it, and not just the fact that one of my favorite hiphop artists really, really, really wants my money.