It was a dark, stormy night and after a long day at work with the promise of another 9am start the next day I didn’t leave the house with the greatest enthusiasm. Regardless rapper, poet, actor and writer extraordinaire Saul Williams was taking over the Beck’s Festival Bar and so sodden and solemn I approached the gates of Hyde Park Barracks where people were scurrying out of the eerie gloom of Hyde Park in two’s and three’s huddled under their umbrellas like moths drawn to the light. Inside the set-up was looking better than ever and although the outside was miserable and washed out, inside the organisers had outdone themselves. The lighting and sound are top of the line and the bar is decked out in full Becks glory with classy cityscape photos in the style of their new ad campaign and impressive fridges packed to the brim with Becks. It was almost impossible to resist the sheer force of advertising and despite a reasonably varied offering all you could hear at the bar was “1 becks, 2 becks 3 becks 4 bec…”

Elefant Traks superstars Urthboy and Ozi Battla were on the warm-up and they couldn’t have made a better choice. After listening to The Herd’s new album I was already starting to think of these guys as some of Australia’s best rappers, but their set on Wednesday convinced me that they are by far the best thing going in Aussie hip-hop at the moment, period. Urthboy nearly stole the show, pacing round the stage, peering out at the audience through about a millimetre of eyeball his obvious stonedness unhidden by his Cypress Hill style fishing hat. Ozi Battla took the role of the crippled side kick, his broken leg detracting enough from his stage presence to make Urthboy the star of the show. The beats were heavy and a change from the softer style of instrumental backing The Herd are famous for. Urthboy’s skills as a rhymer are world class, awesome lyrics, tight flows and crowd working skills to rival the best with a healthy hip-hoppers dose of anti-establishment sentiment (he even had the nerve to take a sneaky stab at Becks in one of his freestyles). This is what Aussie rap should sound like and these guys seem finally to have taken it to the next level. His parting words were ”you guys are about to see one of the shows of the year”, he sounded very sincere and even with 11 months to go I am still confident he’s right.

10.30 and an imposing bearded black man took to the stage. His eyes and facial expression betrayed a great intellect and wisdom beyond his 34 years. He opened solo, with no music, reciting his legendary Sha Clack Clack poem made famous in the award winning movie Slam. The audience was awestruck and cheered wildly as he built to a crescendo while gradually advancing on the crowd adding weight to his words. Seeing him perform live in the flesh brought new meaning and impact to his already astounding lyrics and it was hard not to be impressed. For the next song the crazy looking dude with sunglasses and the wild modernist mohawk started up the beats, which turned out to be a raw, melancholy fusion of old skool, hip-hop, electro, UK grime and heavy metal, with a liberal dash of drum and bass and a sprinkle of Dutch hardcore. It’s different, it’s angry and it fits Saul’s style like a glove. The show flawlessly fuses rap, singing, poetry and spoken word with more than one preachy interlude on issues as varied as the search for identity to the expected yet indirect George W bashing. These talks are perfectly intertwined with his art and he delivers both the music and the message with the grace and eloquence of a great artist.

There are a couple of tense moments, like when Saul tells us how much he wanted to come to Australia; ‘cheers applause’... because of his great interest in the Aborigines; a sort of awkward half cheer and an occa voice yells out “Sorry!” Australia’s fiercely marginalised indigenous minority are so far removed from the patrons of the Beck’s Festival Bar that people are unsure of how to react. When he follows this little speech up with Black Stacey (a reflection on the search for identity as an African-American) you can feel the audience of 95% white Aussie hip-hop heads and European backpackers tense up for a second. Another moment is when Saul ditches the mic, he has a very loud voice which is expertly projected but there are probably close to a thousand people crammed into the tent and he has to stop speaking and cast an angry glare over the crowd to get them to shut up. These are good things though and prove that despite his relative fame and fortune Saul is still able to challenge audiences, something which very rarely happens at this level.

At a quarter past 11 Saul quits the stage to “save his voice” presumably for his Opera House gig on Friday. The audience however are having none of it and stand resolute, cheering and yelling until he comes back onstage. He sounds genuinely gratified by the response and treats us to one final poetry reading, the most abstract and artistic so far. It is probably my favourite reading of the night a little more visual and literary, without the strong activist overtones which underpin most of his work. It leaves me with a pleasant, energised feeling as I turn my back on the ensuing party to step back out into the sticky, dank fog of a stormy Sydney summer.