Live Review: Mathas, Man Made Mountain, Diger Rokwell, Birdz

Birdz strives to work the room with an honest, storytelling vibe. This thump in the chest could be caused from his brilliant approach to Indigenous injustice or it could be from the straight bass rolling from DJ Marze. Single Rise (featuring Jimblah and produced by Joelistics) earns unanimous love from the room. A promising beginning in this fantastically diverse line-up.

Diger Rokwell creates a sonic landscape rarely approached in the music scene. With psych, soul and rhythm influences, Rokwell invites us into an instrumental hip hop realm that's so abstract. And we can't look away. Electric guitar, samples, vocal samples and music — it's all world class. The crowd is in awe. If you think creating digital music isn't an artform, Rokwell proves otherwise.

Man Made Mountain captivate the audience with swagger like no other. A delicious, jazzed-out soul vibe gets hips swinging from singles Cachaca to Master Plan. A JDilla-esque, instrumental (thanks to producer Billy Hoyle) with smooth lyrics for days (courtesy of vocalist Cazeaux OSLO), Man Made Mountain set the bar as high as the mountain they sit on. Cazeaux is the soul food of hip hop, Hoyle is the kitchen and the audience is clearly hungry.

Enter Mathas. A suit-wearing, briefcase-holding, ocker Australian who stumbles on stage for a yarn. No stranger to dramatics, Mathas is able to construct bars with the most complex of lyrics while also breaking them down. By this point the crowd is wild, hands thrusting in the air as the live band belts out hip hop beats not often heard in this lyric-heavy genre. Single Doctorshopping sees Mathas climbing off the stage and shuffling into the centre of the dancefloor. Immediately, the crowd swarm around him like they're recreating a scene from 8 Mile.

Mathas invites you to actually be a part of his music as demonstrated in the following Stone Cold Sober lyrics: "But every skerrick of my being hates hate and loathes violence/And it's an insult to insist when life is time priceless." We cheer and applaud his latest single Bravo Troll as the lights fade.