This gig was the second gig choice made by Jet's brother and was only his second ever gig in over 30 years on the planet. We got in while DJ whoever was doing a support set of hitting us with some heavy weight joints and dope sounds on his table top set up of two decks a mixer and laptop. Well it's not that hard to work a crowd like this when you play tunes by Wu Tang, Public Enemy Jay-z, Cypress Hill etc. I'm sorry but I can't consider playing and scratching so little an act so I never found out who DJ Who cares was, but he did a good enough job of getting a fairly full Scala in the mood.
HOUSE OF PAIN came on slowly, one at a time and gradually all joined in on the first cover of the set: a tune from the obvious godfathers of Hip Hop and Gangster Rap. Yep they opened with Apache by the Muthafukkin Shadows, tippin' some respect to the main Gangsta God Hank Marvin. At least they left B-Boy supreme Cliff out of the equation.
Then once Danny Boy had made his entrance they were off into, er, Danny Boy and things got a little less odd for a while. The first big cheer went up for Shamrocks and Shenanigans, better known as Boom shalack lack boom and it got a good part of the place dancing.
They then dedicated a short song called (I think) Pain to one of their dead friends before going into Top O the Morning To Ya which is a perfect song for all the Plastic Paddies that seem to infect the world each March. Still they sounded good and the band really brought the emotion for both When I Die and House Of Pain but the bass really kicked us all over the place on Who's The Man With the Masterplan.
They were soon threatening to Put your Head Out and I'm sure they would have given the chance as the atmosphere between some of the dancers and the abstainers was heating up a little.
Back From The Dead was dedicated to a long line of dead rappers and Hip Hop stars and in particular Guru from Gangstarr. Keeping it downbeat they went into Just Another Victim and Danny Boy was giving it good and working well with Everlast. Their vocals blend well together and they were both ready to Put On Their Shitkickers and Kick Some Shit: a tune that really got the place going.
Next up as Danny Boy dissappeared was a tune based around Duke Of Earl followed by EVERLAST'S cover of the Godfather of Gangster Rap's Folsom Prison Blues played in a similar arrangement to the Urban Turban take on this Johnny Cash classic. It came on like Alabama 3 but not quite that good, still for the rest of the show there were people shouting for more Johnny Cash!!
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The version Everlast did of my favourite of his solo stuff, Ends, was weaker than the recorded version by some way and signalled that we were firmly in the Everlast section of the show which meant the place deflated somewhat.
What's it like that also featured the band introductions and everyone got a solo that included about a 5 minute bass solo and yes indeed we got the 10 minute drum solo by the end of this song they seemed to have lost a good part of the crowd who never the less went mental when Danny Boy came back out for Jump Around the place went mental and there really was no need in the middle of the song for Everlast to stop things to bawl out one or two people who weren't jumping around. Yes, everyone danced like crazy after that but also the second they finished playing Jump Around and before the band could leave the stage there was a stampede for the exits by over a third of the audience.
Those of us that stayed for the encore got to witness things going downhill fast as someone heckled Everlast at the start for doing too much solo stuff. He had a bit of a go and they got on with What Say Today, but he was rankled and after another heckle he offered the guy out for a fight then and there. The guy went to try to get onstage to duke it out with him only to be flung back by the fans at the front. After more of a tirade saying "you can leave when you want" he then tried to dedicate the last song of the night to Amy Winehouse but had lost the plot and Put Your Lights Out sounded kind of lost. As, indeed, they had for much of the second half of this show.
This set was nowhere near as good as the one I saw at Sonisphere and part of the problem was lack of enough good material for a near 2 hour set. An hour and a bit would have made for a great gig.
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