If you replaced Stüssy tees and crisp white Nikes with gym shorts and tank tops, the Rescue Rooms on this Tuesday night was basically the free weights area of the University Park Campus fitness centre, excessively fuelled by testosterone with an occasional of drop femininity.
With 6 years of waiting, Mez, Nottingham’s very own MC’s, had no difficulty firing up the crowd for the night. The relentless chants of ‘Kano’ began almost as soon as the act was done. Gliding on the stage dressed in his own tour merch, the Top Boy star’s cheerful Colgate grin was enough to send the already unbelievably rowdy crowd into a mass explosion of whoops, braaps, and air-pumping signs. Behind him stood a standard DJ setup with his brother DJ Chopper manning the station. With an image of two men clad in black hoodies against the backdrop of simple strip lights, the anti-bling authenticity of grime was unmistakable.
‘Hail’ kicked off the set with its overdone rock guitars followed by the pulsating asymmetric beat of ‘New Banger’ with its roaring reminder that ‘Kano’s got a new banger’. Apart from ‘Mic Check’ and the top 20 single ‘Hustler’ from his previous records, the latest ‘Made in the Manor’, a more mature reminiscence of the East End state of mind, is such a perfect mix of some rougher bits, some pop bits, and some guaranteed chart-climbers that it is not surprising for the set to be packed with mainly the new tracks from this fifth studio album. From the contrast of the horn hammered ‘3 Wheels Up’ and the minimalism in ‘Drinking in the West End’ to the patriotism of ‘This is England’ and the Layer Cake nostalgia in ‘Endz’, all the gyaldem and mandem of Nottingham made sure Kano had to burst out his lungs spitting every bar to compete with their bullish ardour.
It was essentially a full hour of sweaty moshing with no encore. Kano gave in to the crowd’s ruthless enthusiasm and traded his drink break in for the classic debut ‘Ps and Qs’. Ending the set with the holy promise to ‘leng down’ all your bar mitzvahs and hen dos in his latest party banger ‘Garage Skank’, Kano left the Rescue rooms in mayhem. All that was left visible was the dancing silhouettes of a whole lot of two gun fingers.
By Jaisai Wongpichet (Special thanks to Urbandictionary.com)
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