Brixton Academy, London
04.08.10
Big shows at the Academy regularly bring excitement to Brixton, but tonight the south London district is positively buzzing. The moment I pop my head out of the tube station the place is heaving with ticket touts, t-shirt sellers and more importantly hip hop fans. This level of anticipation can only mean one thing; Wu-Tang are in town and ready to rock the stage.
As ever with the clan there have been a few hitches, most significant is the absence of Method Man who is tied up with filming commitments. Yes, filming commitments, which probably tells you everything you need to know about how far the clan have come over the past 2 decades. While the members have never been anything short of prolific, the clan these days can essentially be seen as a brand and this most recent tour is their way of keeping it alive.
Not that I’m complaining, I was just five years old when Wu Tang released the now classic Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and this is to be my first time seeing them perform as a group. It’s a relief, then, that when they finally appear on stage (about an hour late), they come out all guns blazing. Arriving on stage they launch into an opening salvo of ‘Protect Ya Neck’, ‘Clan in Da Front’ and ‘Bring Da Ruckus’, transforming the crowd’s early hesitancy into a sea of Ws. It’s a set comprised heavily from the group’s first two albums, with classic cuts included from individual members own personal triumphs. Just what the crowd wanted, basically.
What’s great about the performance is seeing how the clan’s characters and relationships take form on stage. Ghostface Killah prowls around and dominates the space, Raekwon is happy in the shadows while GZA is the more mysterious and thoughtful of the MCs, getting the spotlight just once as he runs through his own classic ‘Liquid Swords’. Even the late ODB is (perhaps predictably) recognised, but a run through of ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’ goes down particularly well. The most prominent member is by far the abbot himself, The RZA, whose energy is relentless throughout. Bounding around the stage with a bottle of champagne in hand, RZA is definitely in party mood and it’s perhaps him who shines the brightest.
Despite the many positives, the Wu Tang show is not without its flaws. The sound, for starters, is too muddy to give some of the finest hip hop productions of all time the clarity they deserve. Method Man’s absence is also felt at times, and while U-God stands in admirably, Meth holds so many of the groups key verses that he is sorely missed. Even a somewhat thrown together Wu-Tang show, however, is a live experience that is so completely engaging that none of these negatives matter. With so many big personas on stage, it’s difficult to know where to focus your attention. As the clan launch into their last song, a storming rendition of ‘Gravel Pit’, the fans are sent home happy and the brand is kept alive. Even after nearly 20 years in the game, Wu Tang prove that their clan still ain’t nuttin’ to fuck with.
Sleekly Lion
With the festival season now in full swing, it seems as though the country’s venues and fields are taking it in turns to host a myriad of different bands and events. This weekend was the turn of Shoreditch Park, which was the designated location for the increasingly popular 1-2-3-4 festival. As you might expect from a festival based in Shoreditch, the line-up draws largely from the trendier end of the indie spectrum, yet the event promised much variety for a modest ticket price.
“We don’t take requests, we just play fucking everything,” squawked Lydon when his newly assembled line-up (paid for entirely by his controversial butter adverts) of hugely influential post punks Public Image Limited took to the stage of Brixton Academy last December. It was a statement that turned out to be alarmingly true as well as the band grinded through nearly three hours of the mind-bending rock hybrid that is their trademark. After years of fun but totally pantomime Sex Pistols reunion tours, Lydon was so obviously on a mission to claim his stake as one of music’s true forward thinkers and the first batch of PIL shows at the end of last year did just that, allowing him the perfect platform to deliver his intense anger and bile.
There is something honest about the DMCs; it’s almost like the last bastion of the hip-hop culture that hasn’t been diluted. The UK has a long legacy of greats in the genre and hopefully this night will help eliminate those that aren’t yet worthy, and produce a legitimate contender to battle for the world crown.
Wichita Recordings
Despite liking my fair share of post-rock, it’s a genre that has a lot of very boring bands. While the Explosions in the Sky template of long songs with big climaxes might have been exciting once upon a time, the huge numbers of bands offering only slight variations on this formula leave much to be desired. Although some of these bands are noticeably better than others, there’s only so much excitement I can gain from another nine minutes of tremolo picking concluding in another swirling crescendo climax.
with Gentlemen’s Pistols
We Are Scientists must be kicking themselves slightly. Despite being a great marketing tool around their album release, that World Cup unofficial theme song they so craftily recorded is in danger of becoming the bane of their lives. As the band gear up for their Glastonbury slot by playing to a sold-out Academy in Oxford, the cries from the audience for the band to play ‘Goal! England!’ are unrelenting.
‘Dixie’ Dave Collins, the lead singer, bassist and ring leader of North Carolina’s Weedeater has a certain reputation. This is the dude that toured relentlessly with notorious, drug-riddled, sludge outfits Buzzo*ven and Sourvein and earlier this year he even shot off his own toe cleaning his shot gun. With all these facts mixed in with second hand tales and myths about the man and the band there is a definite level of expectation to the evening. 
Having made a name for themselves through their relentless touring schedule over the past two years, by now Pulled Apart By Horses is a hulking beast of a live band. It seems strange that they are only just getting around to releasing a debut album, having already done so much without recording one. However, here we are, a week before the release of their first record, in another sweaty venue, preparing for yet another Pulled Apart By Horses performance.