Madlib & J.Rocc @ Deviation, Fabric Review

Sunday, May 31st, 2009 | Event Reviews

madlib-j-rocc2Here at EarPipe we do like to venture off the house and techno path every so often, so last Tuesday we headed down for the delayed Madlib & J.Rocc gig for Deviation. After missing his flight the previous week, the anticipation for Tuesday’s gig was at swine flu fever point. Getting into Fabric at 11pm the crowd had packed into Room 1 to get the best view and sound for Madlib’s arrival. Keeping the crowd warm was original Beat Junkie member J.Rocc. He was dropping funky classics such as Apache and They Reminisce into deeper stuff from Dilla and MF Doom. He even dropped Beastie Boys Paul Revere which had my guts rumbling like nobody’s business. For the best part he had the crowd eating out his palm.

Towards the end of J.Rocc’s set Madlib comes out and MCs live over loads of Madvillain and MF Doom stuff which sends the crowd berserk. J Rocc DJing and Madlib MCing, things look like they’re heading the right way until Madlib hits the decks and things start to fall apart. Now from the albums I was kind of expecting randomness, ultra deep cuts and strange interludes. There was plenty of that which wasn’t a problem. It was unfortunately the flow. Cutting poorly into interludes and back again tore down any vibe that the crowd had built up to at that point. The vibe had drained so much that Madlib walked off because people couldn’t muster up enough love for Madlib’s big up to J.Rocc. It may have been theatrics to get the crowd really hyped up, but it just didn’t seem to work. In the end it seemed like a stand off between Madlib and the crowd. Madlib was expecting a wild crowd before doing or dropping any real dope stuff; whilst the crowd were sitting back waiting for Madlib too truly drop something special. In the end neither side backed down and the vibe just petered out. Maybe it was a combination of it being a Tuesday night and some high expectations which created a disappointing cocktail for the majority of the crowd. But I’m sure there was enough from Madlib that the die hard fans loved every minute.

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