Finebeats

Last night (April 7th) saw Method Man hit London at Matter .

Firstly you would have to say that the event was very well organised, and everybody managed to find their way in without too much effort and as the place started to fill the atmosphere began to build very nicely.

We entered at the start of the night and were amongst the first inside, as we walked in we were greeted with thumping old Skool classics which really set the mood.

This continued steadily with back to back classic tunes, with classics from Biggy Smalls, Jay-z and Nas raising the temperature a notch or so, but the first time that the crowd really came to life was when a bit of Old Dirty was dropped, the shouts of 'Wu-Tang' began to filter through and you couldn't help noticing the number of Wu symbols being thrown up by the crowd, which told us that we were in for a great evening of atmosphere and classic music, after a verse and a chorus of Dirty the announcement "that's enough of that s**t for now you gonna have to wait for the main event if you want more", this would have been a good move , but for the following.

Sadly for the larger part of the evening this was where the atmosphere ended and the quality dropped dramatically. The initial  Support act was at best very poor, from an artist who's sole job for the evening is to warm up the crowd and create some hype, you couldn't help but feel he almost did the opposite, i don't think you will find too many (honest) people who could say that it really got them in the mood, and i think the fact that he had to break the news that Cilvaringz wouldn't be attending didn't help his cause much.

The next support act to follow was Palestine a.k.a Ledr P, who didn't do a bad job to be honest, and at least the one saving grace that Ledr P had over his support counterpart was that the effort put into the performance was considerably higher. Still though for us we didn't feel that this was enough to really get us hyped for the upcoming main event, especially as Method Man was listed to perform at 9:30 and you just knew this wouldn't happen ! unfortunately we were right, and the supports hadn't done enough to hype the crowd for the wait in between.

The gap between the supports and the main event were cushioned by some classic tunes which helped get the crowd going,  M.O.P 'cold as ice' got a suprisingly good response along with Nas' 'Made you look', a few more Biggy and Jay-z old skool offerings helped keep some interest but the supports just hadn't done enough for me.

As expected Method Man was late ! although 10:10 wasn't a tragedy, although much of the atmosphere had ebbed away by this point and a small degree of restlessness had crept in, this was softened slightly by a late influx of fresh spectators which helped to lift things slightly.

The poor support and the wait had  seemingly left Method Man with alot to do when he entered the stage, and as always the Wu legend didn't disappoint, from the first moment he opened his mouth to the time he put the mic down he had the crowd completely encapsulated and eating out of the palm of his hand, all restlessness and disappointment had completely vanished and Meth had the crowd exactly where he wanted them and the place went absolutely nuts !

With decent support from streetlife and DJ Mathematics behind him coupled with his trademark elaborate stage diving and constant crowd participation Method Man started a process of tearing Matter to pieces and keeping the crowd hyped beyond belief, as soon as the crowd audio level dropped even slightly, a shout of "wu" or "Wu tang clan aint nothin to f**k with" brought the noise through the roof again.

Method man continued to raise the roof with back to back fire, and the middle section of the performance really got the fans going with a tribute to the late O.D.B, and when he dropped "Got Ya Money" the crowd participation and temperature in the venue was nothing short of electric, with Method Man acknowledging that fact by sayin "Thank you London, Dirty woulda loved that shit" with the nostalgic moment over Meth rallied the crowd again by acknowledging  the support saying "This aint an ordinary gig …. this is a method man gig" sending the crowd nuts before saying " thank you London, you know what ? …. next time im gonna bring Red with me" which got another electric response .

As the evening continued and the dreaded last train home hour arrived, the numbers began to slowly deplete, not dramatically but enough for the rap star to notice, instead of ignoring it or pleading with the crowd to stay,  in typical Meth fashion he cut the beat and said " Ya'll gettin tired London ? …… You wanna go home?  …….. well if you do wanna go home ….. then f**k you, you know where the door is, but no matter whether it 1 person, 2 people, 3 people 4 people …. or whatever …….. i'm gonna rock this bitch no matter how many of you are here!". This brought a huge response with the crowd doing all they could to show that they were still behind the Wu legend.Method then took this opportunity to start dropping some new material and testing the fans to see who was up to date with what he had been doing.

Overall, the initial mood in the beginning was good but not great, the support acts were generally poor, but Method Man was awesome and made the night worthwhile, our advice … if you get the chance to see Method Man live .. then definitely take it !

Pics to follow soon so look out for that !

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