Idioteque
Event: Idioteque
Venue: St. Lawrence’s Working Men’s Club
Date: 14/02/08
Rating: * * *
The lack of ‘alternative’ nights out in York is a source of consternation amongst students who feel let down by the mainstream clubs that seem to take their musical cues entirely from daytime Radio 1. The Idioteque club night has been developed with this group in mind. Following a highly successful electro night last term, the Idioteque team took things up another notch by inviting several members of London-based hip-hop group Foreign Beggars to headline a hip hop/dub night at Lawrence Street Working Men’s Club.
The venue was a perfect choice for this kind of event - it had more than adequate amounts of seating along with a well thought-out stage area (which had been rather atmospherically decorated akin to a military command tent). Coupled with this was the inspired idea to separate out the cocktail and other drinks bars so that you don’t have to wait ten minutes to untop a bottle of Becks because the people in front of you are ordering a dozen burning manloves.
But did the music match the organizational success? I wasn’t entirely convinced. The earlier DJs showed promise with eclectic sets that had a slight electronic edge and songs from artists such as RJD2 and the Chemical Brothers, but the support rappers lacked both the beats and the lyrical prowess that good rap demands.
The arrival of the night’s headliners, Metropolis and DJ NoNames spurred the crowd into a frenzy and initially Metropolis’s strong stage presence had everyone captivated. However, gradually the songs began to blend into one another as the rest of the Foreign Beggars group became increasingly conspicuous by their absence. A more complex rapping dynamic would have greatly improved the experience. Sadly I also found the lyrics - the part of hip-hop I most enjoy - were overpowered by the music and lost on the audience.
Whether this factor was actually important though is debatable. Although some might argue that events such as these just allow York hipsters to feel pretentiously cool, most people there seemed to be having a lot of fun, and that is what should be of paramount importance in any night out.
