Back in 1991, four Californian breakers burst onto the international hip hop scene with their now classic album Bizarre Ride 2 The Pharcyde. The success of the single Passing Me By helped carry the crew to a second successful album, Labcabincalifornia in 1995. Nine years later, I found myself in a busy Metro theatre watching the remaining two members sweat it out on stage.

A sparsely populated main room was being filled with the sounds of Blindhoarse and MC Losty when we first made our way in, but pretty soon the formidable Sydney combination of Hermitude alongside Urthboy and Ozi Batla got things nice and lively with a couple of buddies I failed to collect the names of in my alcohol-fuelled frenzy. Anyway, they put in a top effort with tunes old and new, jokes with the crowd, and a positive vibe to get everyone in the mood for live hip hop.

Next up came relative unknowns 2UP with what was apparently an album launch of theirs. A decent live hip hop band, the performance, for me at least, was however marred by my realisation that the sound down at the front of the theatre was pretty bad; a common affliction at ye olde hip hop gig; the high frequencies were hard to pick out, leaving a bass heavy experience with 80 percent of the vocals impossible to comprehend.

This problem continued, but it wasn’t worth leaving the energy of the first few rows behind, as when MCs Booty Brown and Imani stepped on stage accompanied by DJ, bassist and keyboard the rush of euphoria from such enthusiastic/drunk/peaking fans was impressive to say the least. Never mind the fact fifty percent of the original crew was missing, these folk had shelled out 60 fat ones and were gonna party.

The two MCs worked their way through material presumably from the new album Humboldt Beginnings, as well as old material which was met with whoops of appreciation when the first familiar chords hit the ear. It speaks volumes for the success of hip hop when a band, which in the scheme of things, are not huge per se, can come across the globe structurally weakened, years after their peak, and tear the house down. They succeeded, with me at least, in not making it to obvious where the missing MCs verses were, apart from the little episode of the encore, where Runnin was performed.

After waiting over an hour, it struck me that my favourite Pharcyde song would not be heard in all its harmonised glory for the now obvious reason that they weren’t all there to sing their barbershop-esque parts. Call and response shouts just aren’t the same, but all things said, they put in a good effort and most present seemed pretty satisfied.

And if that wasn’t enough, no one other than Kool Herc stepped onto the stage after they left it. He didn’t actually perform, but rather let us bask in his godfather status after his Sydney show the night before, spouting the usual old-school rhetoric. But hell, he got a round of applause, and before you could say ‘which shitty George St. pub should we hit up now?’ the room was almost empty before DJ Blaze dropped a few more to satisfy the remaining revellers.

All in all, a pricey yet enjoyable night.