Gig: Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Koko, London
I’d been looking forward to seeing Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip again since catching them at XFM’s Winter Wonderland in December. They only played 3 songs on that occasion and so the prospect of a full set was exciting.
We arrived at Koko in time for the opening act Producers with Computers. If you took Daphne and Celeste crossed them with PJ and Duncan threw in a bit of Goldie Lookin’ Chain then moved the whole thing to Essex you’d be able to start imagining what Producers with Computers sound like.
‘I do like girls but I don’t like girlies’ and ‘we’re producers…with computers’ they repeat and bounce and Kris Kross it to us solidly for half an hour. Neither The Mac Dad nor The Daddy Mac were anywhere to be seen and so they didn’t quite give me the desire to jump.
If I knew them, or this was a local gig, I’d have thought they were the funniest thing I’d seen in ages but on the night in a 1500 capacity venue they missed the mark.
I had high hopes for musician and artist Gideon Conn with his hip-hop, funk-folk crossover band. They were certainly a very well organised band, and Gideon had a very endearing quality. There’s no doubt he houses a great deal of talent, although sometimes the genre hopping style gets a bit too much to deal with.
I found myself getting into the laid-back grove of forthcoming single ‘I Want You Around’ but then vocally in the rap parts I couldn’t stop thinking about the song Mini-Me performs in Austin Powers. On top of that the melody was then giving me Skee-Lo’s ‘I Wish’ and by then I was lost in my own world of 90's RnB – it was hard to recover.
Moments in the set definitely made you enjoy and engage, but then I was frequently lost again. The audience participation moment (‘Electricity, electricity’) reminded me a little bit of primary school. The highlight for me was the simplest part - just Gideon solo on an acoustic guitar to close the set.
And so to Le Sac vs Pip - the set started off with a rework of the Antiques Road Show theme tune, which tied in nicely with the stage set consisting of an old TV, an armchair, hat stand and grandfather clock. I got a smile on the inside, like the night before you go on holiday. There was definitely an air of anticipation.
Seconds later they burst in to ‘Beat That My Heart Skipped’ and with the audience in to it, they settle. New single ‘Look For The Woman’ was also dropped pretty early in the set – it's the most mainstream/radio friendly release to date. Perhaps because of that it doesn’t quite hit you in the same way some of the material they released last year.
I’m convinced this is a pairing that will continue to deliver great tunes; the sharp, weighty and witty lyrical content provided by Pip and melodic beats with dynamics from Le Sac make for engaging listening.
The set meanders a little in the middle and the sound in Koko disappointed a bit. From my vantage point the lyrics could not always be heard, and visually I think the stage show didn’t quite scale to the size of venue. I'm sure in some of the smaller venues on the tour they will have created electric atmospheres – but, at times, the stage set and duo looked a little swamped by the proportions of Koko.
They saved some big hitters for the end including ‘Angles’, ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ and ‘Letter From God To Man’ and they kept the crowd jumping for an encore that featured 'Cream', a Prince cover and a cover of The Specials ‘Nite Klub’.
In between both of these sets we had some excellent spoken word MC’ing and overall it was a great gig, even if the supports weren't totally to my taste.
The debut album ‘Angles’ is released on 12 May and new single ‘Look For The Woman’ comes out on 28 April. The Dan Le Sac vs Scrubious Pip tour is across the UK and Ireland until 8 May.
Jim Bowes
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