For reasons as yet unexplained, MC Hammer was chosen to kick off Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (http://www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com/) this morning in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The free annual music festival features the likes of Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. But today, because SF is supa trippy, MC Hammer joined this banjo-thumpin' list. What's next? Madonna headlining a Christian Rock festival? The only thing to make a hillbilly scratch his beard more was the fact that this morning's concert was for schoolchildren. As in people not even alive in the eighties. How'd they learn about him? Was there a unit in social studies class? So picture this: Speedway Meadow on a cloudy day. Big yellow school buses lining JFK Drive. And a chainlink fence all around the Star Stage. Me and my clearly non-school-aged friend rolled up, and we were ordered to stand behind the fence. Only children were allowed near the stage---those aforementioned humans not on earth during the era we like to call Hammer Time. Seriously. So me and my confused thirty-ish friend dutifully traipsed to the back of the meadow and made our way through ouchy pine trees to the extreme left side of the stage, which was probably best for the minors present. And then Hamma's 30-minute set began. Like some Sesame Street sketch gone awry, it was hilarious to watch MC and his fly dancers teaching kids the proper hand signs for “2 Legit 2 Quit”. And Hammer even brought kids u ...
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