Okay, now let’s drop the colour thing; you and me know that in music colour of skin, religion, whatever, is irrelevant compared to the music. It’s why we love it – it transcends all. Opener sole (aka Tim Holland) really has a hang up on certain issues though, most noticeably Blair and Bush’s recent knees-up in the Middle East. Now, don’t get me wrong, but there’s only so many times you can hear the same shit before the record gets worn out and tossed in the garbage, and sole comes remarkably close to being yesterday’s news with his repeated tirades against this political injustice and that governmental wrongdoing. "It doesn’t matter who you vote for/the government still gets in" he says. Really? You’re shitting me. He’s far better when addressing his less globally relevant hang-ups through his intricate and speedy raps, with ‘Da Baddest Poet’ claiming, tongue in cheek, that "the white man is the baddest poet". Better still is his warning that big brother is always watching you, ‘Tokyo’, containing the ‘Watership Down’ inspired (but no less prophetic perhaps) line "Run rabbit, because when they catch you they’ll kill you". In an age when we get our kicks from watching grown people acting like giant hamsters in a cage, performing tricks for tins of beans, sole’s fingers are well and truly on the public pulse. It’s just a shame that he fills the gaps between songs with unintentionally patronising remarks, as songs like ‘Plutonium’ ("get your picket signs/go on strike/get a five cent rise/you’re a champion") and ‘Selling Live Water’ ("living like ghosts in this globe we can’t run from") are received like he’s the ‘baddest’ shit since bread came sliced.
It’s also a shame for him that Sage Francis steps up and blows him away. Sandwiched between two of hip hop’s lesser known names (Sage is by far the biggest of the current anticon crop, having just signed a deal with Epitaph), he begins his solo set (sole was backed by themselves on instrument duty) by battling his shoe, eyes bulging from their sockets like his head is in a vice, yet retaining an intensity unlike any other act of the night. He waves an American flag about his head, with the stars replaced by the logos of major corporations ranging from the Playboy bunny to the infamous golden arches; he stands on a chair, pointing his mic stand like a machine gun; he is an enigma. There’s no doubt about it, Sage is perhaps the most exciting live performer I’ve seen since, um, I saw him last time in some dank basement off Old Street. The aforementioned BOOMS! are reserved solely (boom boom) for him, and it’s exactly what he deserves. ‘Crack Pipes’ is amazing, and receives sing-along treatment from the hip hop heads down the front, whose adoration is openly appreciated by a shy in-between songs Sage. "I’m a real underground rapper/my hit quality sucks/my records are warped/and my CD skips" he claims on ‘Different’, but it’s unlikely to be the case for long, as numbers like ‘Specialist’ are full of more promise than an eleven year old David Beckham. "She wants to dance to my pulse/but I’ve got heart murmurs" he says, but it’s him making our hearts skip a beat as our body struggles to catch up with what our ears and eyes are taking in. He is, simply put, incredible.
Inevitably, headliners themselves don’t match the heights reached by Sage’s all-too-brief set. That said, any group that contains members of the acclaimed cLOUDDEAD is obviously worthy of sticking around for, and they prove to be just that. Not as straight-up as either sole or Sage, themselves’ weird hip-hop-meets-performance-art takes some getting used to, but once you’re in the zone, it’s the best fun you can imagine having with your socks still on. Their recent album, ‘The No Music’, was rapturously received by dance, hip hop and rock press alike, the reason being that, going back to my second paragraph, music like this transcends not only race, religion and politics, but genre pigeonholes too. I’ll confess; I didn’t catch any of the song titles, but the performance alone was such that it made me rush to buy ‘The No Music’ (containing the brilliantly anti-gangsta line "shove that gun up your ass") the very next day, which, if you’re looking for recommendations, is a pretty dang good one.
So, that was anticon. Mostly white guys, playing some of the best hip hop these ears have heard, although I’ll freely admit that I’m no expert. But I am left excited by this music that I previously knew very little about, and you can bet your bottom shilling/cent that I’ll be BOOMING with the rest of the crowd the next time these guys roll into town.
