Atmosphere Scala (Kings Cross) live
Armed with years of touring credits and an inventory of credible music under their belt the duo Slug and Ant, known collectively as Atmosphere, graced the shores of the UK to dispatch an assault of musical lustre on fans and music lovers alike. Backed by a touring band and fellow Rhyme Sayers member, Brother Ali, the all too rare appearance was set to be a performance beyond par and million miles away from the glitzy galaxy of commercialism. We (Sloppy Jallopy & J Bean) went to check it out.
Neither of us had ever seen Atmosphere or Brother Ali perform before and being big fans of their music we were very exited about witnessing these two underground kings live. You can imagine our bitter disappointment when we were delayed due to some bullshit at the door which resulted in us missing most of the Brother Ali set! For the fifteen or so minutes we did catch, it was a superb performance which had the whole crowd rocking. Sporting a blue half sleeved shirt, buttoned all the way up to the collar, Brother Ali orchestrated the crowd to move the way he wanted. His imposing physical demeanour and his albino features added to his cool appearance. Ali got the crowd hype and set the benchmark for the type of quality show tonight was all about. The crowds’ appreciation at the end of his set only reminded us of what we had missed.
A short interval of funk/hip hop later and the band took to the stage. Having the plus of a touring band meant that there was a minus in the tour DJ as Ant was missing from this formula. It would have been good to see the production whiz behind many classic Atmosphere gems.
Slug sprang to the stage wearing a hooded jacket igniting the crowd into a fist pumping frenzy and a jumping mood with the first track of the performance, “God loves ugly”! The performance was energetic and literally spine tingling! Slug had the whole crowd singing the chorus back to him on command!
A couple of tracks in Slug shrugged off his jacket to unveil an amusing ‘Mickey Murs Club’ t-shirt! This seemed to be an indication that the show was about to really start.
Moving back and forth from tracks of past to the present album, Slug performed them with as much fury as they sound on wax. The sound quality at Scala was excellent and you could hear music, voice and lyrics clearly. Some tracks we remember performed that evening were: Say hey there; That night; Little man; The woman with the tattooed hands; Pour me another; and Love life. As the performance went on the energy from Slug was reciprocated by the crowd, and visa versa. Crowd participation to suggestions and commands from Slug was unfailing. Mostly everyone knew the words to songs and sang/rapped along with him throughout.
Declaring it was the song he most hated to perform, “Trying to find a balance” was also enjoyed by the audience.
Slugs’ lyrical content plays on the personal rendition of complex experiences resulting in an intense individual, and that intensity was visible in his live performance. It was a real pleasure to watch an artist pour their soul into their performance. Slug is a truly excellent performer.
There was also a lot of banter offered by Slug throughout the performance, most of which beer deprived our brains from remembering unfortunately. One thing we did remember however, was Slug explaining at one point to the audience that they were some of the ugliest he’d seen – “some of the ugliest mother fuckers in here! Reminds me of back home”! Comedy!
The band was exceptional. Better than most I’ve seen perform with a hip hop artist.
The audience was a fairly mature one and also some of the friendliest.
Scala was clearly too small a venue for the size of crowd this show pulled. The venue was unbelievably packed. It was difficult to get a good view of the stage and performers, but once we did we stayed put. People would push past you trying to get from here to there and rather than get irritated and annoyed, as we did, most party goers seemed to be much more tolerant and good humoured (at least where we were) about it all.
Finally the encore had Bother Ali grace the stage with Slug, claiming the cliché phrase of “the promoters say we have a little more time” and then setting the place ablaze with “Cats van bags”
To sum it up, the show was awesome! Anybody who hasn’t experienced Atmosphere or Brother Ali live before really NEEDS to! If you have – see you at the next one!
Peace to Abi who was sentenced on this day and will be missed during his time inside.
Slug sprang to the stage wearing a hooded jacket igniting the crowd into a fist pumping frenzy
- Sloppy Jaloppy
& J Bean
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