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While tonight's line-up is about as edgy as a five pence piece,
it's still good to see the broadcaster allowing rap and garage to
dominate a night that sees 'bedwetters' Keane downsized to a
smaller venue across the Lock.
Critical darling Santogold is
tonight's support, and while the success of her eponymous debut album
has allowed her to become much more than 'Mark Ronson's
protégé', her obvious talents don't come across to a sparse crowd
waiting for the headline act.
Dressed in a shimmering powder-blue jumpsuit and flanked, as ever,
by two implacable dancers wearing dark glasses, Santi White is a
visually arresting performer, but one it is actually difficult to warm
to - especially as she is, essentially, singing over a backing track
notionally pumped out by a bored-looking DJ lurking downstage. So,
while LES Artistes and opener You'll Find a Way are as thrilling to
listen to as they are on record, you could really have stayed in the
bar with your ipod clamped to your ears and not missed much.
When she does go off-piste, the results are at least diverting, if
not always successful. An odd reworking of the fantastic
Stokes-like Lights Out as a call and response gospel song is
disappointing for the indie kids in the crowd, but at least shows some
of the kind of pioneering spirit sadly lacking from her more
recognisable tracks. There's a pretty nice version of The
Clash's Guns Of Brixton as a Damien Marley-esque Kingston
skank, but it adds little to the song. Much more impressive is a solo
version of her collaboration with Diplo, Icarus, a scratchy,
haunting song that sounds more like tomorrow night's headliner
Nitin Sawhney than anything else.
If Santogold's set seemed a little lacking in effort, The
Streets' headlining is the complete opposite. Clocking in at a
good two hours, and with a full orchestra, gospel choir dressed in
"chav wedding" chic and a band drilled to military precision, the
Birmingham MC gives the impression of having thrown everything at this
concert to make sure it works - and by God, everything does. Tonight,
for Mike Skinner, is a "big dog night".
Skinner has known the limitations of his stagecraft for sometime -
cultivating an unsurpassed line in audience banter while playing the
type of low-key gigs that Santogold has just turned in. Now, with the
added bonus of a huge BBC-sponsored backing section, the results are
electrifying. From the off, as the triumphant strains of new album
opener Everything Is Borrowed echo around the venue, Skinner is a
matey, genial and forceful presence who holds the audience in the palm
of his hand.
In a set that spans all four of his records, but with only a couple
from his drugs breakdown record The Hardest Way To Earn An Easy
Living, there's little filler - almost every song either was or should
have been a single. Skinner's song choices are as hyperactive as the
singer himself, leaping from emotional confessional to "beer lairiness"
and back again throughout the set.
Don't Mug Yourself and Has It Come
To This are frenetic workouts in noughties malaise, with Skinner and
backing vocalist Kevin Mark Trail bouncing about the stage to
tales of suburban stupidity, while the ska of Let's Push Things Forward
is a continual reminder of what an original voice the rapper really
is.
While Skinner's boyish enthusiasm lends his lariest numbers a
certain amount of silly charm, it's the slowies that really blow the
roof off the place tonight. In pre-gig interviews, Skinner had
explained his decision to play the event as being down to his late
father's love of the broadcaster.
Fittingly then, his tribute to his
father, the Let It Be-like Never Went To Church, is a gorgeous,
pared-down thing of beauty, and is the only moment in the evening that
he seems genuinely lost for words.
Dry Your Eyes, staple soundtrack of a hundred 'emotional'
television programmes, is as affecting as ever - the soft consolation
of the lyrics abetted by the orchestra's overpowering violins, while a
speeded-up version of early love song Too Late is fantastically
affecting, despite sounding a little too close to comedian Bill
Bailey's fantastic reworking of the BBC News theme tune as a drum 'n'
bass record.
Eventually Skinner leaves the stage, stripped to the waist and
carried aloft by an enthusiastic crowd. As he reminds us
throughout, this has been a once-in-a-career moment for him and for
the audience. It seems old Auntie still has some tricks in her yet.
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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
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BBC Electric Proms performances can be viewed online at www.bbc.co.uk/electricproms
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