- Broken glass... everywhere, people pissing on the station like they just don''t care.
Lucky the bottles were all plastic huh?
We knew we were in for a treat: as we made our way through the overgrown Westfield that is the Fox Studios complex, the bouncers at some dodgy pub gently manouevered us out of the way as a sluice bucket washed the vomit from the concrete. Class.
Lots of kids - who one imagines will one day grow into their trousers - headed towards a gig for a guy who was producing music before they were born. Is it a womb thing? I''m not sure.
The event attracted a cornucopia of human treats... from the people who thought they were at the opera at the back, musing gently over their programmes and maintaining their seats, via the quintessential promoter''s corner [just to the right of the sound booth mate] and then EVERYONE else. The place was rammed. I haven''t sweated so much in the Horden since the old Boiler Room days. Every age group was there in full effect. There were people wearing outfits where you couldn''t tell if they were being supercool and ironic or if they''d been wearing the same gear for 25 years [big ups to the guys in the white leather Thriller jacket... whoever you are].
I caught the last bit of The Herd, they were obviously loving it, and the crowd accordingly loved them right back. Koolism trashed a mixing desk and delivered a set, which frankly didn''t keep my attention [but hey, as it was a non-smoking venue, that was always gonna be a big call].
Nick Toth brought in some beautiful dance hall stuff and got the room really moving. Never afraid to dig out some sounds from the vault, he was in his element as part-DJ, part music historian.
The majority of the true Sydney hip hop collective was conspicuous in its abscence - the $60 cover charge seemed to be prohibitive - what we got instead was kind of like a strange postmodern version of what hip hop used to be.
Imagine if Wonderland did a hip hop ride. That''s what it was.
The Grandmaster himself took to the stage after a ''motivational'' video intro. With the combination of superstar lighting effects and this truly seasoned stage persona, he had us in the palm of his hands. Flash was fast. Flash was cool. There was a fair bit of interactive Romper Room stuff going on - some unkinder folk suggested it was like The Wiggles for grownups. "Put your hands in the air like you just don''t care". I don''t think that''s necessarily a bad thing. I can honestly say I never thought I''d be singing the entirety of Billy Jean anywhere... let alone in public, along with 5000 others.
Old tracks and new were mixed in here and cut up there. Some of the newer commercial stuff had to be a joke. Didn''t it? Well I found the Jenny from the Block bit very funny anyway.
Despite a couple of technical glitches, the production was ambitious and the Fuzzy guys very much delivered. Once again - grown-up stuff. The sound was spot-on - always a very big issue in the Horden and bloody well done. I just wish they''d been able to relax and enjoy their night a bit more.
The whole night was a surreal experience. Talking to a lot of people about it since, the responses are very mixed. Some people were disappointed, but frankly I don''t know what they expected. What we got was two hours of non-stop hip hop hilarity and you don''t get to say that in the same sentence very often now do you?