As we entered the Moonbar, Cornershop greeted us with A Brimful of Asha care ofSlynk. It’s a crime that this was the first time I’d caught the local funkster as his set was filled with a confident mixing of funky beats and chilled out grooves. Sadly the number of souls on the floor at the time didn’t reflect the attention this set deserved, but by 11.30pm the floor had filled up a bit as it was becoming difficult to not get your groove on to the skills on display.
Those skills really came to the fore just as Sampology was preparing to take over. The two briefly played back and forth with beats and pieces of their own styles, with Slynk showing that he can scratch it with the best of them. When the Butter Beats golden boy took over proper, he didn’t waste any time in getting the floor bouncing and the room reverberating to Ol’ Faithful soul classic California Soul. The combination of the liquid gold vocals of Marlena Shaw and Sampology’s chilled out but stirring bass had done their job, but it was time to turn it up a little bit.
The driving funky beats came in the form of everything from FAZE-O’s Ya-Ba-Da-Ba-Duzie to some more recent funky breaks of True Skool by Coldcut. One shot from leftfield had this reviewer pleasantly floored with a perfectly paced groovy reworking of I Can’t Go For That. An already skilfully proficient set that showed Sampology’s technical skills in his mixing and scratching was topped off with a nice liquid dnb inclusion of The Specials classic Ghost Town, a possible hint at the kind of set we’d be treated to by the main event?
Starting a little later than billed, the laptops were switched over and the extra two decks were employed to begin what was billed as a four-turntable two-hour extravaganza by the Nextmen. The set began with quick breaks cutting from Head Over Heels overlaid with Michael Jackson vocals to Superstitious, which would have gone down really well if the sound hadn’t suddenly cut out…
...but they were soon back on track moments later when a bass-heavy funky edit ofBittersweet Symphony limply resurrected the set back to life. The Dizee Rascal debutFix Up Look Sharp was a popular, if brief choice, and really stepped up the movers and shakers, but it was all too suddenly cut into by the increasingly overused 99 Problems. Thankfully, due to the nature of the Nextmen set, it didn’t last long and we were quickly on to the most popular inclusion of the night.
They’ve been known to do some tasty remixes of New Zealand dub, most notable among them the great job they did with Shapeshifter’s New Day Come, but I’d never heard Fat Freddy’s Drop sound so good during a set, at least not since they played the Tivoli recently. The Nextmen’s 2-step remixing of Roady got the biggest cheer of the night. All arms were in the air and feet were pounding the floor as this live classic was rejigged to great effect.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes though when Welcome to Jamrock started to impede on the previous excellent blending of liquid dub and garage 2-step (possibly only 99 Problems being more overused in funky breaks sets), but when it was shifted to bring a booming drum n bass to the fore all fears were allayed. There was a noticeable release in the room as everyone really let loose and stomped the floor with delight as the wall-shockingly loud DnB bombarded the crowd with superb beats. In fact, it was only when the set descended (or should that be ascended?) into dnb, was everyone at their most enthusiastic.
Sadly, as was now to be expected, this didn’t last long, and we had shifted genres once again, being subjected to INXS staple Need You Tonight, with an admittedly smooth sounding and perfectly matching bassline from Bob Marley & The Wailersmasterpiece Could you Be Loved. Certainly a replay of Hall & Oates lost its sheen with Sampology having already skilfully included it in his own set. It was beginning to feel like student night at the local dive when Kiss came on and sealed the deal, and by this stage the MC’s often misplaced and all-too frequent chants of “making some fucking noise!” and “oh shit!” were beginning to really grate.
Relief came when he didn’t stick around for the finale, and while some thinly veiled disappointment from the duo due to the fact the crowd didn’t make as much “fucking noise” as required, it was sufficient to warrant a Nextmen encore filled with blaring trumpets and big band funk with a Sexual Healing flavour. The crowd promptly dissipated, and no doubt those seeking a night of recognisable intros to tracks they could sing along to whilst chasing tail, were the happiest of the lot.
Acts that can skip effortlessly from one genre to the next show off great skill and proficiency with their equipment, but rarely the intuition for gauging the mood of the night. Sadly this is how the Nextmen gig can be summed up. They are technically brilliant at what they do, but to deliver about ten seconds of a hip hop classic and make it judder into an 80s poptacular tune makes it difficult to really get into any one song. The Nextmen skipped from hip hop to jungle to 2-step to garage to dnb to indie inspired breaks with the deftness and skill of some of the best, but spreading yourself too thin in the space of what turned out to be just over an hour and a half denotes quantity over quality.
A deaf preschooler could have noticed that when they dropped the drum and bass the crowd went ballistic, but this good work was undone when they continued on in their journey of an extensive genre-spanning track list, and betrayed a lack of precision in catering to the mood. Sometimes it seems that, sadly, international acts that haven’t played in Australia very often feel the need to play to the commercial masses. What needs to be realised is that to work your way through a set of less popular but far superior gems until you hit that sweet spot where the crowd reacts, and reacting in kind, is much more rewarding.
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