Inner city rap duo Crochet Crooks opened proceedings with a short and sort of sombre set including a great remix of Calvin Harris' Feel So Close and an energetic closer, Lights Out.
The masked DJ Maninja spun tunes between sets and Brisbane's Mr. Hill, alongside Wagga Wagga's Rahjconkas, took the stage next. With two albums as a team under their belt, the MC-beatmaker duo bounced across the stage providing a taste test of everything from Mr. Hill's very first song, Find My Way, to the fun Party Like It Ain't My Money from their latest release.
You could feel the curious excitement as the 15-piece Basement Big Band set up the sheet music for their new hip hop arrangements and their host of instruments on stage. MCs Tuka and Ellesquire lent their flow seamlessly to the classic groove and brass swing of the band.
Tuka's cover of Chet Faker's I'm Into You was a beautiful mix of singing and rapping, while Ellesquire put up a new tongue-in-cheek song, Gross, featuring such one-liners as “I bet you got a lot of skid marks, plus you're picking boogers like you're freakin' Biz Mark”.
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The band was impeccable, interspersing solos throughout the set from saxophone, trumpet and some especially intense electric guitar work on Ellesquire's On The Prowl.
Solo from Horrorshow jumped on stage with Tuka for Mr. Inside, the first time they'd performed it together live, but the highlight of the night came with Tuka's soulful Die A Happy Man, because it was simply a perfect fit, with trumpets picking up the bold, operatic vocal line in the chorus.
A genuinely fun hip hop gig, both MCs interpretive-danced their way across the stage with a great energy and dynamic between them and the troupe got the head bobbing audience to bust out some new moves, proving the combination of big band and rhymes a recipe for success.
