BBC Radio 1Xtra Live @ Birmingham Academy, 29th November 2011
The venue was packed for the second night of the BBC Radio 1xtra Live tour and the bar was set high from the excellent night before in Manchester.
Maverick Sabre kicked the night off with a powerful soul set performing hits including I Need, This Jungle and a rendition of the Sam Cooke classic By the River for the Trevor Nelsons Live Lounge.
The crowd was buzzing when Sam Frank started to work his magic on his decks, and the party had started with everyone enjoying themselves and dancing, Last time I had seen some one having that much fun pushing buttons was my brother at Christmas with his new play station, but Sam Frank was winning his game and the crowd loved it.
Then Tim Westwood one of the legends of 1xtra took over with his classic selection of hip hop & RNB , getting the crowd to “put your hands in the air and pretend your unscrewing a light bulb” followed by Panjabi MC – Mundian To Bach Ke” this was Westwood getting the packed crowd, black white and Asian to “Indian dance” and it worked. You would never guess he was the son of an Anglican Bishop !
This was followed by a short but sweet performance by the girls favourite J Cole doing his second successive night in Birmingham.
A regular theme of the tour is getting a local act to share the stage and my personal highlight was seeing local boy C4 performing, having watched him putting all the hard work into making his music in small local venues and finally getting his big chance and having a packed house shouting his catchphrase “Ooorite”. This is what dreams are made of.
They say save the best for last, and that was clearly the case with Nero, who gave an exhilarating and memorable performance in terms of stage presence, entertainment and delivery, two guys stepped out on the stage, looking like a Terminator tribute with lighting and strobe effect that felt like a scene from TRON and the crowd, by now in full party mode loved it and Nero stepped up with a breath taking performance to close a great night out.
The next stop for the Radio 1xtra Live tour is tonight in Bristol. I highly recommend going, it was an amazing night.
Review – Chadwick Jackson
That was (legendary dubstep originator and member of Magnetic Man) Skream on the decks, not Sam Frank. Sam was the fella on keyboard/vocoder for the first couple of songs of that set.