Photo by Kyle Gustafson.

Sometimes, there is no motivation so great as the threat of not going on. At Monday’s projected start time of 9:00 p.m., three members of The Roots (keyboardist Kamal Gray, guitarist Kirk Douglas and MC Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter) had not yet arrived in Washington, D.C. Unsurprisingly, they were held up by the crazy snowstorm that hit everybody except us. Some bands would cite “act of God” and bag the performance, but The Roots took this opportunity to reaffirm their status as hardest working band in the business. Drummer ?uestlove acted as guest DJ during the delay until 10:47 p.m., when, nearly two hours later than advertised, Black Thought walked in the door.

Even then, the seven-piece hip-hop band didn’t play a shortened set. In fact, they seemed completely unfazed by the day’s treacherous travels. They launched directly into an urgent and inspired version of “Web,” from 2004’s The Tipping Point. It would be the first of many times during the night where the band completely blew their recorded material out of the water — and the Roots have recorded excellent albums.