Stereo MCs Review
From Moscowiki
| Stereo MCs |
By Sonya Rinkus
Another band that made a pact with the devil to get big a long time ago and is now condemned to playing Moscow, the only place where people still appreciate them, for eternity, the Stereo MCs (or Stereo M-C-S, according to some members in the audience) brought Old School positive rap to an oppressively hot Sixteen Tons. Seriously, the club could stand to direct the funds set aside for bringing in another star of the early nineties towards a real ventilation system.
The MCs made a bold move by playing their hit "Connected," the one that people were singing to each other on the street outside before the concert to remind them of who they were going to see, in the first ten minutes. It got people dancing and hitting each other like "Yea I remember that song from the Carphone Warehouse adverts, too!" I didn't even know that I knew the Stereo MCs, or the song, but could somehow sing all the words.
Stereo MCs took nine years off, which begs the question, "What exactly have they been doing?" Nick "The Head" Hallam has said in interviews that he suffered a "nervous breakdown" in the mid-nineties, and is only now pulling it together. Yet it was rapper Rob Birch who looked like a man on the verge -"What has he been doing tonight?" was a better question to be asking. Rail thin with protruding veins, Birch had a palsied mic grip and jumped around stage like few forty-year-olds, or even four-year-olds, can. It fed the energy of the crowd though you got the feeling that if Sixteen Tons turned on the lights and sent everyone home, he'd still be doing it. At least the soul sisters providing background vocals looked happy and healthy.
After they dropped the "Connected" bomb, it could have been all over, but the MCs pulled out a few other hits ("Elevate Your Mind," "Set It Off") and Birch issued some impressively long rap tirades without taking a breath, perhaps dangerous in his condition in the heat. When he told people to jump, they jumped, sweating all over each other. At this, I removed myself from the dance floor banya and spent the rest of the concert by the crowded bar with a Rod Stewart impersonator, raising the roof from afar. Luckily, there are TV screens back there that show what's going on onstage. Virtual concert-going - it's the technology of the future.
19.07.06.
