You’re sat on your comfy couch on a Sunday night and it’s absolutely lashing it down outside. You’re halfway through a good boxset on Netflix and your Sunday lunch is settling like the Titanic at the bottom of the North Atlantic. You’re thinking “why in the name of all that’s holy have I booked tickets to see a hip hop gig?”
Then when your alarm wakes you up at 5am for work the next morning and you’re so tired you turn the radio on instead of turning the alarm off and every inch of you aches because you’ve been bouncing around and you didn’t get enough sleep BUT you still have a stupid grin on your face and a Public Enemy shaped ear-worm ringing in your head – then you’ll have your answer and you’ll know you’ve been at a great gig the night before.
Sunday night was our first visit to the new Cardiff venue The Tramshed
I think it may just what The ‘ Diff needed in terms of music venue. Just the right size between the smaller Globe and Clwb Ifor, and the horrible ginormous aircraft hanger that is the Motorpoint.
Fully equipped with a cloakroom, viewing balcony, bars up and downstairs and a cracking sound system is a little gem. The only issue I can see is parking – and then only when it’s raining. Like it was on Sunday. Boy did it rain. Il pleut comme une vache qui pisse. On a corregated roof.
So as the steam rose off us like a Pontypool scrummage on a wet Friday night we waited for the band and hoped they could raise our spirits from the near dead.
Take a moment and think what you might get from a live hip hop gig?
Did you think of a hooded dreadlocked Flava Flav doing circuits of the stage on a hover board?
Did you imagine marines guarding the stage
and getting down to do press ups
Or of rock hard rastas leaping into the audience (followed reluctantly by the security staff) to eject beer throwing morons (for that is indeed what happened)
Of Chuck D’ belting it out
Of fist-bumps and high-fives
Of hip-hop congas around Hendrix style guitar moves
Of audience participation and a bouncing mosh-pit
Of the best scratching DJ you’ve ever seen
And of a venue so damn hot in every sense that Flava Flav started to dish out water
Well – I can tell you that we got all that and more. This was more than a gig – it was a show.
If anyone ever says hip hop is boring just point them in the direction of Public Enemy. These boys know how to party.
A fantastic set by a brilliant band – do catch them if you get a chance. Highly recommended
Eat see hear Cardiff 