For a hip hop act from Australia, the speed at which Hilltop Hoods sold every single ticket to Sydney’s Enmore Theatre was unprecedented. The speed at which those tickets sold out also shows you that this time around it wasn’t just the hip hop heads excited about the return of Hilltop Hoods, who on Saturday night headlined a Sydney venue for the first time since 2006.

Melbourne’s Briggs, and Canada’s Classified were enlisted with the support slots for the night. Both emcees did great jobs of keeping the large groups of people who started streaming into the venue from the moment doors opened entertained.

The ‘Hoods opened their last album with a song about “being back” in the form of Recapturing The Vibe. They also do the same on their latest State Of The Art, this time with The Return. Not only are these sort of songs a great way of introducing an album, but are extremely effective when opening a show as well. The Hoods got straight into The Return and from the first bars they spat, it was clear…they are most definitely back!

With only three members the ‘Hoods had a lot of room to work with on the Enmore’s large stage. Suffa and Pressure performed tirelessly for the entire set, filling the free space with extremely energetic performances. Debris held forte behind the decks at the back of the stage, behind Debris sat a large projection screen showing a cartoon visual that wasn’t just up there for the sake of distracting people with trippy visuals. A lot of work had obviously gone into getting this right, it was very deliberate and showed something relevant to the two emcee’s words.

A couple of tracks into the show and it was time for the immense Clown Prince, soon followed by a huge performance of What A Great Night. It was during this song that the audience really found their voices, and vocally were with the boys on almost every word after this point early in the set.

If you hadn’t seen it done before, you would be forgiven for thinking a track with the lyrical intensity of Stopping All Stations may not go down too well live…you would be wrong. A standout cut from the last record, and a song that really shows off the intelligence Suffa and Presure possess as lyricists. It had the entire venue on board the train with the guys as they re-told the three part story. Pressure then closed out the song with an inspired bit of extra fast spitting which brought the audience into a frenzied finish.

Next came the familiar sounds of the flute that leads into the classic Nosebleed Section. I feel safe in calling this song a classic now. For those who are unaware, Nosebleed Section was voted in at number 17 in the recent triple j Hottest 100 of all time. Making the ‘Hoods the highest placing Australian act in the countdown, a massive achievement.

The first single from their new record, Chase That Feeling garnered a huge response from the crowd, it was clear that a lot of people had been waiting for this song to come on, a good measuring stick of just how well their new album has been received. As they closed out the set they played a few older songs including an excellent version of Illusionary Lines which morphed into Testimonial Year towards the end.

If you were among the lucky ones to be in the audience for this, I think you witnessed one of the shows of the year, local or international. For everyone else keep an eye out for the ‘Hoods on a few upcoming festival bills, and be warned, tickets for their shows will only sell faster and faster from now on.