Mark B & Blade Birmingham Academy 'Unknown' no more but still, unsuprisingly, unable to draw a large crowd when there's little to no promotion, Mark B, Blade and entourage returned to Birmingham and one of the towns this current resurgance started off (at Fresh '00). A return for me to the once Birmingham Hummingbird, long dormant and now Mean Fiddler'ed into the Birmingham Academy. A teaser by making you look over into the massive main gig room and into the smaller backroom where eventually there was probably a couple of hundred who'd fronted the £7.50 for this show. Seems like they've been at it for a long time, The Unknown tour in 2000 promoting the LP first time around (with local Brummie Defisis doing the backing vocals then), the mind-blowing Mean Fiddler gig in January, supporting Feeder, Eminem, playing numerous summer festivals. And now drawing to a close the UK leg of the 'There's No Stoppin It' tour promoting the recent EP of the same name (which bizarrely didn't get played tonight). Beni G from the Mixologists is dropping some nice tunes but people are milling around, sitting on the floor and drinking. Paleface from Finland undeniably suffer from 'first band on that no-ones heard of' syndrome and aside from a few head-nodders, the nice beats, dual DJing action and competent MCing fail to get the crowd to move forward from the back of the room. Even getting one of the two DJs to take the mic and perform a track in Finnish fails to impress upon the audience who are only here to see one thing.... And so it's left to Blade, Mr Lex and Beni G to make their impact (Mark casts a lonely figure behind one set of the decks, as all his job seems to consist of in the live show is to cue up the next instrumental track and shout a couple of taglines 'now you know the name'). They're tired, presumably from all the touring, and for the first quarter of an hour it shows, the 'too cool' Birmingham crowd slow to respond to the album by numbers performance, it all sounds a bit flat. Gradually as both artists and crowd warm up it begins to change, 'Split Personalities' gives Lex a chance to show his own skills rather than just being the anchor-man repeating Blades rhymes. But it's undeniably the madcap 'caberet' half hour in the middle of the show that gets things to the next level. Beni gets to do a bit of a turntablist showcase, Blade calls up for a beatboxer to get on stage (enter the bizarrely monickered 'Shittalk') and shortly after Sarah, a singer with a fantastic voice, steps out of the crowd to join in. One quick beatbox lesson from Shittalk to Blade later (yeah you can't fool us Blade, we've heard you do it before) and Blade takes the beats with Sarah and Lex on the mics. The audience is won and are contributing to the show like mad Villa fans ('wika wika' shouts one in what can only be assumed to be an attempt at a scratching noise, to be picked up by Blade and dropped into his next beatbox). Shortly after and it's back to the show proper, 'The Unknown' has all the crowd shouting the chorus and jumping like madmen, queue another pause to get a nutter on stage to perform his version of the chorus. Another brief sojourn whilst Blade acapellas the first verse of 'Sealed With A Diss'...not sure the crowd get the 'it's not about the internet sites, just certain people who write for the sites' bit amid the shouts of 'wankers' and 'fuck em' from the crowd during Blades explanation of the track and straight into the Grant Nicholas remix of 'Ya Dont' to which the crowd go certifiably apeshit. What could possibly follow that? 'Survival Of The Hardest Working' of course, no doubt its inclusion on the latest EP only furthering its popularity. And so when the lights come up at 11pm people are still craving for more, but as is now customary the crew all hang around the merchandising signing hats, posters, tshirts, records, skin and whatever else people want them to. Blade mentioned earlier in the show that he wants people to leave his shows with a smile on their faces. Mission accomplished for 99% I'd imagine (you can never please everyone).... - Spoon | profile  Related Links: their site a fansite(!) did you know I interviewed them last year © ukhh.com 1999 - 2001