Venue:
Moseley Park
Date: 10/07/2015
The withdrawal of Melle Mel and the Furious Five opened up a late surprise headliner on the Friday in the shape of the former greatest hip-hop band in the world. The vast walk-up queue on arrival suggested that PE’s audience was not quite yer typical Moseley festivalgoers. I missed everyone bar The Pharcyde, who went down well as a hip-hop party band without tempting me to check out their back catalogue. After the usual hyping we got a band that barely fitted on the Moseley stage: DJ Lord – sadly Terminator X is still on the ostrich farm – Chuck and Flava and then a posse that I think was headed up by Professor Griff who is back in the fold, two S1W brothers in paramilitary gear, and a few other hangers on – all underpinned by a live drummer, guitarist and bass. Did they rip the festival up? Pretty well. No revolution, but a rip-roaring canter through a set of greatest hits – Terrordome, Bring The Noise, Dont Believe the Hype, Shut Em Down, 911, and of course Fight The Power. Many unpredicatable twists in the act – including Flav reinventing himself as Prince and playing both bass and drums, while Chuck D got the mouth organ out (not a sentence I thought I would write). There were references to playing the Hummingbird 28 years ago, but Chuck was in performer rather than politican mode. There were even respectful about the curfew – ‘We got six minutes left’. It was left to Flav to make a closing speech, in which we all said hell no, or words to that effect, to racism and seperatism. Everyone into the night well happy.
The audience:
The Moseley crowd – guardianistas, families, pimms drinkers, leavened by an influx of more refreshed walk-ups. Sweet smells in the air and everyone happy to chant along.
It made me think..
Surely we don’t complain anymore that hip-hop is boring live as PE are a class act live – spontaneous and tight, playing around with their catalogue while giving the crowd what they want. And it’s great to see guys hanging around onstage doing, well not very much really.
But they’re just blokes shouting. This will never catch on*
Seriously, thanks for this Moles. There were certainly sweet smells in the air in the balcony of the Manchester Apollo last time I saw PE in March 1990. Flav has been telling interviewers for 30 years that he’s a multi-instrumentalist, but it’s the first time I’ve seen any evidence of this.
Griff back in the fold eh? He’s been in and out of PE so many times he oughta be the Minister of Fiddler’s Elbow. He’s absolutely barking, you know – the David Icke of hip hop.
“It’s great to see guys hanging around onstage doing, well not very much really.” PE started a trend with this, a few years later MC Hammer had more people on stage with him than then end of a Specials gig.
(*standard AW response )
I saw them last year at the Tramlines festival in Sheffield (19 years since I’d last seen them live) and they were still awesome.
Flav did the bass thing here which surprised me.
And it was also the first concert I took my son to (who was 8 at the time) and he dug them.
It’ll be quite cool in a few years time with his fellow peers;
“Who was the first band you saw then?”
“Ahem, Public Enemy”
I like to think of it as good parenting!
I’ve seen them twice before, once at Reading Fest 91′? ….and Kentish Town Forum maybe 10 yrs ago. ….Actually transcend their genre live and i’d say in the top ten of live acts i’ve seen…
Have tix or some sort of wristband thingy to see them at Rough Trade East on Monday,…can’t wait!
I’ve always loved them but even so, I wish I’d realised at the time what a one-off they were. I mistakenly assumed they were at the vanguard of a new movement. Turns out they *were* the movement.