Renowned party crew Ugly Duckling hit Adelaide to much anticipation from a loyal array of fans. Sporting a catalogue of arguably hip-hop’s best party jams of recent times, hopes were high for a good show… and that’s largely what was delivered.

The Electric Light Hotel has undergone some major renovations this year- its new owners looking to return it to a Mecca for live music. Of late it seems to have become the hip-hop party venue of choice. The show was to be in the monstrous beer garden out back, a somewhat odd venue for a hip-hop show. On a balmy 30 degree night though, and with the amount of beer that is downed at a hip-hop gigs, it was equally apt as odd. Warming things up behind the decks were the likes of Madcap and Jumbo as the crowd filled. This happenend at an impressive rate for notoriously late starting Adelaide. The soundtrack of funky broken beats had heads nodding early as many of us indulged in some local liquid refreshments to counteract the heat. Young Einstein when he appeared was even wearng team colours- a Coopers Brewery T-shirt.

Before we knew it, the nights only support act had hit the stage, Style High Club. With two emcees, (one rocking the coolest chain I had ever seen), a live drummer and a DJ, the crew was young but clearly accomplished. I had never seen this crew before, but I was definitely impressed. The soul and funk based production was tight, the live drums lifting the overall sound and each emcee could clearly rhyme. If only the sound had been a little better, the lyrics could be clearly interpreted. Sadly, this problem persisted during the night and it was always a battle to hear the lyrics clearly. Regardless, Style High Club impressed what was fast becoming a full house, getting a little call and response action and hands raised from a clearly up-for-it crowd.

As they finished, I managed a quick trip to the bar, because a dehydrated reviewer is something nobody wants to see, returning just in time to see the trio that is Ugly Duckling take the stage. By this stage it was basically a full house, heads jostled for position prompting Andy C to utter this line “this is the first time I have ever said this at a show, but yo watch out for the pot plants when jumping” causing much laughter at the weirdness of the gigs location. Despite the recent release of a new album it’s clear the Ugly Duckling live show was all about getting heads jumping to their classic tracks, again, the only thing letting the performance down was the sound. Now, I don’t know if it was a sound technician not used to hip-hop shows or noise restrictions due to our outside location, but a lot of the lyrics were just muffled and mauled by the depth of bass, something that needs to be worked on for future gigs. Thankfully wasn’t a big enough issue to dampen the show. The biggest cheers of the night were for hits like Pick-Up Lines, Eye On The Gold Chain, A Little Samba & Turn It Up, but it’s fair to say all tracks went down well and were sung word for word by the majority of the crowd.

The Adelaide crowd were as always knowledgeable and well behaved, with the exception of one act. UD had called for a local emcee to get on stage and spit a little something, after the standard joker who just wanted to get on stage an emcee was selected, things were about to kick off when another guy decided he wanted in. He was told by Dizzy that nah an emcee had been chosen, but he refused to get off stage, while this happened one of his shall we say “crew” decided to try and physically intimidate the first emcee off stage. Now not only are UD hip-hops least violent crew, making the act stupid, but the whole idea of using violence to get your own way is ridiculous. Thankfully Dizzy took control as security stepped on stage and things threatened to escalate and it was decided the two should battle, the first guy chosen looked to be having a ball up there, whilst the second wannabe “thug” tried again to get aggressive, this time with rhyme, before refusing to give up the mic, people don’t pay to see the locals rhyme, the sooner fans get that the better.

That brief annoyance aside – and scarily I would bet Adelaide wasn’t the only state to experience a similar problem – the set was tight, short sharp and sweet yes as it was wound up around midnight, again I assume due to the outdoors location. A really good venue hosted exactly what the full house expected, tight party jams from Long Beach’s number one crew, with a few little sound quibbles ironed out Electric Light appears to be THE place for hip-hop shows this summer.