If you’ve not yet been out to the Marquee, in Camperdown, it is a great venue for live music. The room is long and reasonably narrow, with a good sized stage, apparatus for the playing of pool down the back, and a well located bar. The dance floor, though, is covered in some sort of hard tiling which doesn’t respond terribly well to having glasses dropped on it. A small round of applause to the young lady who conducted the lecture in “Turning your Drink into a Thousand Points of Light”, and a much bigger round of applause to the thorough and conscientious effort of the glassie who made sure that all the fragments had been swept up. It’s always good to see staff going the extra yard to ensure the safety of patrons. Well done, that man.

We wandered in to hear Jack Prest playing some warming grooves. Shortly, Urthboy and Ozi Batla came on stage to do their first set of the night, backed by Elgusto of Hermitude on the decks. This wasn’t the launch night for Urthboy’s new solo album, “Distant Sound of Random Menace”, but I figured I should mention the album given that we heard some tracks from it. This first set was a lot of fun; it can be exhilarating to watch artists who are prepared to walk the fine line between the spontaneous and the shambolic, especially when it works as often as it did here. Elgusto was doing a great job, too; laying down some grooves which really suited the laid back way that the MCs were going about their work.

Bass Elefant were up next, and these guys are well worth seeing. Consisting of bass guitar, drums and keyboard, they were laying down some wonderful dubby, organic sounds that perfectly suited my tachycardc dancing style. The keyboard player scored major bonus points for also doubling on melodica; after all, the melodica has to be the prime contender to be the defining instrument of the 21st century. Midway through their set, Bass Elefant were joined by Urthboy and Ozi Batla, whose second set seemed more assured and included a wonderfully incendiary rendition of the Herd’s “77%”.

Hermitude played the final set. I’ve yet to see them deliver a bad performance, and they looked relaxed and on song tonight. Once again, midway through their set, they were joined by Urthboy and Ozi Batla who gave us “Alleys to Valleys” amongst other material old, new and freestyled.

The only disappointment of what was musically a brilliant night was that there weren’t more people there enjoying it. The atmosphere down the front of the room was still fantastic, because pretty much everyone there was determined to enjoy themselves, but things thinned out pretty quickly as you moved back from the stage.

Even if you don’t consider yourself a hip-hop head (and I certainly don’t), I’d urge you to get out there and check out some of these acts. If you like your music with soul, and a groove, you could do an awful lot worse.