Wu Tang Clan at the Enmore!
Review: Glen Downey | Photography: 1ovakynd |
30 October 2009
In amongst all the office moshing, we at BLUNT mag are actually secret gangsters. Every first Tuesday of the month we come in wearing our XXXLest jeans, freshest Timbs and sit on the front gutter sipping Henny and rollin’ dice.
So with our ears still ringing from SLAYER we c-walked up to the Enmore Theatre to peep the unstoppable Wu Tang Clan and Lil Jon. Some bizarre bogan version of Lil Jon was spitting mouthfuls of backwash into the front row which probably explained why the crowd was so thin just before the King of Crunk hit the stage.
A booming “YAYUH” came from backstage and Lil Jon burst out, no crown, no chains, no pimp cup. The lackluster crowd punctuated the disappointing stage show. Probably subdued by the realisation about four cuts in that they only knew “Get Low” and the rest amounted to a weird dude yelling “WHAT!” over admittedly brutal basslines.
With the dirty south’s finest finished they climbed past their comically huge pile of used towels soaked with sweat from all the hard crunking and made way for the Wu.
The lights dimmed, the crowd packed in, and as if a vent was opened on cue the unmistakable smell of a hiphop show descended in a haze across the venue. Despite the tax man catching up with Method Man in the US, Ghostface rolling on his own these days, ODB DOA and U God and Masta Killah deciding it would be best if they didn’t show up, the Wu put on a huge show.
The lights dimmed, the crowd packed in, and as if a vent was opened on cue the unmistakable smell of a hiphop show descended in a haze across the venue. Despite the tax man catching up with Method Man in the US, Ghostface rolling on his own these days, ODB DOA and U God and Masta Killah deciding it would be best if they didn’t show up, the Wu put on a huge show.
RZA, GZA, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, Dj Mathematics and about ten other massive dudes in equally massive shirts hyped the hell out of the Enmore. W’s were flying everwhere, bodies were bouncing, heads were nodding and everybody was getting in on the party. Most of the verses from missing members were handled by the crowd and it started to feel as though the Enmore crowd could put on its own Wu Tang show next year as long as it could sort out a DJ and a decent PA.
All the anthems from 36 Chambers came out and the crowd blew up. An awkward hush started to descend on the 8 Diagrams material, which they thankfully picked up on and brought back da ruckus. The crowd was left baying for an encore that never happened but we can’t stay mad at the Wu.
As we shimmy shimmy yo’d our way out of the Enmore we couldn’t help but wonder what a group of black dudes from the slums of shaolin getting a few thousand Aussies to yell “nigga” represented. We’re going with “a damn good time”, but we still don’t get how it works.
Wu Tang Forever
