Gig Review: Professor Green + support Smiler and Chiddy Bang – London O2 Brixton Academy
Professor Green
London O2 Academy Brixton
Saturday 5th May: The last show of the 10 date ‘At Your Inconvenience’ tour, and Professor Green (Pro Green) is finally headlining Brixton Academy, and he did not disappoint.
Joining Pro Green tonight was South East London’s Smiler. I saw Smiler perform on the MOBO tour at the end of February and this guy is taking off, big things from him this year. Performing songs from his mixtape ‘All I Know’, which has received great success. He is releasing his single ‘Rocksteady’ on 11th June. Look out for him.
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| Chiddy Bang |
The next opening act was Chiddy Bang, an alternative hip hop band from Philadelphia. 2011 was a great year for the two person group, rapper Chiddy Anamege and DJ/producer Noah Beresin, they joined Pro Green on tour. They have great energy and got the audience jumping. ‘Handclaps and Guitars, which has samples from Walk The Moon’s ‘Quesadilla’. Chiddy introduced the next song by saying ‘Let’s take them to church real quick’ then in comes the single ‘Ray Charles’ which is taken from their album ‘Breakfast’ released in March. Another song performed from their album was ‘Talking To Myself’, which has uncredited vocals from Bluey Robinson, absolutely loved this song. The last song to be performed was the well-known song ‘Opposite Of Adults’, which is on the ‘The Swelly Express’ mixtape, the majority of the audience knew all the words, the audience went crazy for this song. If you have yet to hear of Chiddy Bang, I would strongly suggest a look at their album or previous mixtapes. These guys are going to be huge, and they are a great live act. Chiddy left the stage by saying ‘Brixton it’s about to get busy’ – he was right.
Next to the stage was Pro Green’s DJ – DJ IQ and Felix, getting the audience ready for Green, they played music and hyped up the crowd, got everyone singing and dancing, everyone was in a good mood. Brixton was packed, sold out with nearly 5,000 people, it wasn’t’ a surprise why the queue went round the whole building. With the audience ready for Pro Green, it wasn’t long till the curtain dropped, revealing the band and Pro Green comes running on to the stage.
The first song we hear is ‘At Your Inconvenience’, Pro Green is flawless, you can understand why people want to see him live, the band and Pro Green jut bring the music to life. Next was ‘Oh My God’ from the album ‘Alive Till I’m Dead’, it was good to hear music from not only his ‘At Your Inconvenience’ album, the original track has vocals from Labrinth, however Pro Green’s backing singer, introduced as Thomas took over the vocals, he has an incredible voice, and may have taken the shine away jut for a second from Pro Green, in my opinion.
‘D.P.M.O’ was next, I guess this is the time to say that everyone should be warned about the explicit content, not just in the songs but generally. ‘Need You Tonight’ was up next, this was the first song released after his tour with Lily Allen and is from the ‘Alive Till I’m Dead’ album. Then ‘Just Be Good To Me’ which features Lily Allen came on, obviously Lily Allen wasn’t there, but the female backing singer took over the vocals, and did a great job, she was introduced as Katie.
‘I Got The Remedy’ is a song that when performed live has so much energy, at a point in the song, a crowd of people run on to the stage, including Smiler and Chiddy Bang, carrying alcohol and dancing around the stage, at the end of the song, most of the cups are thrown in to the audience, and Pro Green downs a whole plastic cup of Jack Daniels.
Three songs later, a song called ‘How Many Moons’ this is the remix, and brought to the stage were Dream Mclean and Rinse. For me was the best song of the night, the ground was shaking, the audience were going mad, energy on the stage, great lyrics, was awesome.
‘Are there any monsters in the audience?’ brought in the song ‘Monster’ another crowd pleaser. At the end of the song Pro Green says ‘before I’m done let’s run this town to the ground’, clearly you think that at the end of the song that’s the end of the concert; so after ‘Into The Ground’, everyone leaves the stage and you think that’s the end, but if you have been to Brixton Academy before, you know it’s never over until the lights go up.
After a while everyone comes to the stage for a five song encore. Pro Green even does an acoustic of some lyrics from a new song he is writing, clearly the fans were intrigued and all their phones were out. The most well loved song of the night, had Katie come back to the front of the stage and help Pro Green with ‘Read All About It’, it is a beautiful song, with deep and emotional lyrics. The last song of the night was ‘Goodnight’ from the Alive Till I’m Dead album, a great song and a great way to the end the night.
All in all, the night was fantastic, some great live music, from both the opening acts and Professor Green, if you like Professor Green I strongly suggest seeing him live. Unfortunately that’s the end of this tour, however it’s now festival season, he will be appearing at; Isle of Wight festival, T in the Park, V Festival and Wireless.
Review by Christina Benneworth
