After the burner release of Red Tape Renegades Vol. 1, it was time for the entire Red Tape Entertainment roster to hit the road for their national tour. The Adelaide leg of the tour was organised by City of Verses, with locals supports coming from Damo & Words, Social Change and DJ Kansel, as well as Trials (Funkoars) doing a stellar job hosting the night.
The local hip-hop scene in Australia is an interesting one. Some groups get way more support and exposure than I think they deserve, while others go along seemingly unnoticed by the majority of fans. The later, I’m afraid, was the case for the Sound the Horns Tour at Viva on Friday night, with less than 100 people taking their time to push through the heat and shuffle through the doors.
The night started slowly with DJ Kansel spinning a few tunes before the promoter couldn’t wait any longer and had to get the first act on, even though the crowd was abysmally small. Social Change deserves a lot more respect (and support) than what he got on the night, dropping a bunch of new tracks, some freestyles and the four banging tracks from his EP. He took it in stride though, still performing with the same energy that he showed two weeks prior at the Double or Nothing show on the same stage. After a short break the invited special guests, Mind Over Matter took to the stage as a warm up for their set the night after at the O’Ball show. Personally i’m not really into the music Mind Over Matter make, and when there’s basically no-one in the crowd supporting them, their live show just looks awkward – as it’s clearly geared towards an event with people there to party.
After another break Damo & Words came up to do their thing. Damo still hasn’t figured out a new way to transfer his fast, hard-hitting, punch-line based raps into a live set – spending most of his time stumbling across the stage and looking uncomfortable. Words, on the other hand, has his part on lock – jumping around like a madman and getting the crowd hyped up. Damo performed a few new tracks, namely his track on the new Battlehoggs Official Mixtape Vol. 2, which will be out soon. The people who were in the front row (about 10 of them) seemed to get into it, while most of the patrons took to the chairs and couches towards the back of Viva.
Finally, with the locals acts out of the way, and clock pushing midnight, it was time for the Red Tape roster to shine. First up were up & comers Pure Product who performed their tracks from the Red Tape Renegades compilation, as well as a few off their soon to be released album. I was really impressed by these guys, handling the microphones and the lacklustre crowd like professionals. After they stepped off, the lights on the stage were shut off and the smoke machine hissed into life. After a minute or two of nothing people were starting to get restless and curious at the same time. Then a deep rumbling beat kicked in as Anonymouz walked out from behind the curtains with a lit candle in his hand. He rapped the first track with only the candle lighting his face before the lights switched back on and Balboa came out to join his American counterpart. The duo did their tracks from the compilation as expected, as well as a bunch of newies that sounded nice. Balboa wasn’t as entertaining on stage as I’d hoped, but Anonymouz held it down, easily getting the crowd gee’d up for the mind twisting verses from Balboa.
After another short break it was time for the headlining act The Optimen to do their thing. By the time the group had got on stage the time was pushing late into the night and it was clear by the diminishing crowd some people had decided to leave early (their loss though, I guess). The Optimen aren’t brilliant rappers in their own right, but together they work well with one member (I didn’t catch his name) handling the samples live and DJ Damage (Terntable Jediz) behind the decks. Their show was one of the most entertaining I’d seen in a while, also bringing back out the rest of the Red Tape roster for their guest verses. Finally, The Optimen closed out the night, rocking over Be Easy while the few people still left showed their appreciation.
While the turnout was disgusting, the acts performing were of a high calibre and well deserving of the $20 price tag. I’m not sure whether the turnout was due to poor promotion, of whether the heat played a part, but something definitely went wrong because the Red Tape Renegades deserved a bigger response in Adelaide than they got.
eldy says...
decent review man. Turnout was very poor indeed, not sure how to explain that. The Optimen did a burner set, I really enjoyed it, one of the better posse sets I have seen in a while for sure.