... with Priest + M. Sayyid (ex-APC) as the openers, to my considerable surprise and delight. Keeping the beats tough and simple, they did their best to work the sleepy crowd, including several sharp freestyles along the way. They repeatedly mentioned hwo they'd been in the studio for over a year and were happy to be back on stage, and their demeanours certainly showed that.
But make no mistake about it, this crowd came to see Roots Manuva, who spent the first half of the show looking bewildered and shocked at the mammoth reactions he was getting. Of course, the beats were top-notch throughout, but he started out a bit stiff, and his energy couldn't match the crowds' until he dropped "Witness", at which point the place completely exploded and Roots dug down and stepped up his game. After that, he seemed to get more confortable, even throughout the puzzling non-reactions to some of the new "Awfully Deep" material. Nevertheless, I left the venue wondering whether people couldn't get into "Colossal Insight" because it was new, because it was played too soon after "Witness" blew out the crowd, or because it was disco played in front of a crowd that only wanted to hear hip-hop.
Like last October, this blog has become a gig calendar, and that's going to continue with Autechre next week. It's also true that a good chunk of my time normally spent thinking and writing about music has been newly occupied with thoughts about baseball, and "Yard Work" in particular. But rest assured that this blog isn't going anywhere. Not like anyone was concerned that it was. But just in case you were.
No comments:
Post a Comment