Promoe vs. Helt Off. KB, Malmö 25/10/06
A night with two main acts. I saw Helt Off at their first gig ever, at Swea Reggae Festival this summer and they almost tore the house down. I wanted to repeat that feeling and went away this evening with big hopes and expectations.
Promoe (also a member of the Swedish hiphop band Looptroop) started the evening. He has a great voice and has done several great songs on record (for example Long Distance Runner, the new Headache (with a superb sampling of Julie Driscoll's wonderful song A Word about Colour) and of course These Walls Don't Lie), often performed brilliantly in a sort of half-singing/half-rapping way. He is usually more or less political and on record this is very obvious. The problem for many hiphop artists is however that they always want to party on stage, even if they have important things to say. So the political message disappeared during the concert and made this, unfortunately, "yet another hiphop gig" if you understand what I mean. It was ok for the moment, but I prefer the records. Rating: ++
I had big expectations on Helt Off, the band from Lund who has members with background in both funk, pop and hiphop. Together they do reggae in Swedish, but the vocals often tend to be hip-hopish as both Chords and Timbuktu are involved! The records, which I bought after the super gig at the reggae festival, are both ok but not fantastic in any way. Live is something else which may have something to do with the addition of a brilliant organ player (Måns Mernsten of Damn!) and a lead guitar (Magnus Tingsek). Of some reason, which I don't know myself, I didn't find this concert as good as the one in July. Maybe it was the expectations. However, it is still a band which is much better live than on record as they really give everything. If you get the chance to see them, do it! Rating: ++++, after all.
A night with two main acts. I saw Helt Off at their first gig ever, at Swea Reggae Festival this summer and they almost tore the house down. I wanted to repeat that feeling and went away this evening with big hopes and expectations.
Promoe (also a member of the Swedish hiphop band Looptroop) started the evening. He has a great voice and has done several great songs on record (for example Long Distance Runner, the new Headache (with a superb sampling of Julie Driscoll's wonderful song A Word about Colour) and of course These Walls Don't Lie), often performed brilliantly in a sort of half-singing/half-rapping way. He is usually more or less political and on record this is very obvious. The problem for many hiphop artists is however that they always want to party on stage, even if they have important things to say. So the political message disappeared during the concert and made this, unfortunately, "yet another hiphop gig" if you understand what I mean. It was ok for the moment, but I prefer the records. Rating: ++
I had big expectations on Helt Off, the band from Lund who has members with background in both funk, pop and hiphop. Together they do reggae in Swedish, but the vocals often tend to be hip-hopish as both Chords and Timbuktu are involved! The records, which I bought after the super gig at the reggae festival, are both ok but not fantastic in any way. Live is something else which may have something to do with the addition of a brilliant organ player (Måns Mernsten of Damn!) and a lead guitar (Magnus Tingsek). Of some reason, which I don't know myself, I didn't find this concert as good as the one in July. Maybe it was the expectations. However, it is still a band which is much better live than on record as they really give everything. If you get the chance to see them, do it! Rating: ++++, after all.
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