Public Enemy Live at The Manchester Academy

[marvinbarcelona]

I met up with a couple of friends at Kro2 bar on Oxford Road, had a couple of drinks and headed off to the gig, with the intention of avoiding the supporting act. Our timing was perfect...as we entered the hall, the air-raid sirens went off...."Ladies & Gentlemen......PUBLIC ENEMY!!!!!!"...well, the charge to the front began, but I soon retreated to the area around the sound desk, old codger that I am, I left the 'pit' to the youngsters.

The crowd was a wonderful mixture of people; young, old, black, white, asian, rockers, skins (the anti-racist variety that we breed here in Manchester)...infact a whole spectrum of music fans were out in force and did the old city proud.

It was a real 'old-school' evening; 911, Fight The Power, Rebel Without A Pause, Welcome to the Terrordome, Bring the Noise & Power to the People were the old-school highlights. No Terminator X of course, but DJ Lord was a great replacement for the legendary osterich farming turntablelist. His mixing and scratching was greeted with awe and joy...we feared, people, we feared, but we weren't let down. The two guitarists were excellant, especially the lead...Public Enemy lead 60 second tribute to Hendrix with a blistering "Purple Haze", with the guitarist blasting out furious riffs that had us gasping!

Chuck D vanished from the stage every so often, like me, he's no spring chicken and needed a breather. In to the void steped Flavor Flav, & 7 Octaves Higher, Timbo King and a couple of others whose names escape me - I wasn't taking notes, people! - and kept the pace moving. Flav brought the pace down and allowed everyone a breather by playing a couple of tracks from his new cd. He asked the audience what they tbought;

"Make some noise if you thought that song stank!" he cried, of course we couldn't resist making noise......I love you Manchester he shouted...you're keeping me real!...we loved him!!!! Of course we shouted louder when he wanted to know if we liked it.

There were only two members of The Security of The First World in evidence and I get a feeling they were dragged in at the last minute...their timing was not good, it wasn't good at all...but they laughed and we laughed.

Then Chuck D exploded back on the stage, legs flying and arms flayling like a man possessed and we were off again.

7 Octaves Higher bounced the sound off the walls with a couple of superb tributes to Rage Against The Machine that had us wanting to mosh....even me! The younger, moshier (is that a word?) folk weren't expecting this and went beserk, well they did infront of us anyway.

Chuck D came back on, demanding everyone raise a finger to George W Bush, demanding we scream "MAKE LOVE, NOT BOMBS...MAKE LOVE, NOT BOMBS", asking us to realise that we were all one people, black & white, it was the oppressors who were the enemy.

Too many highlights, other than the ones mentioned, but...Flavor Flav's drumming, the sight of raise fists everytime Chuck D came on and the finale...everyone on stage, moshing in a circle (no mean feat on the small Academy stage - was this really the stage that Flaming Lips had trouble fitting on, yet Public Enemy et al moshed their asses off on?), water flew, t-shirts were thrown out and dragged back in light-hearted tormenting of the front rows and jewellery given away.

Fantastic people. If they are coming near you soon...get a ticket!

PS - if you get a chance to see the film of this gig....for they filming it...look for a guy to the stage left of the sound-desk, that'll be me wishing he could still mosh!!