Resin Dogs @ Manning Bar,Sydney (06/06/08)

Tue 10th Jun, 2008 in Gig Reviews

With their new album More floating around, the Resin Dogs have taken their cavalcade of sounds on tour, visiting just about everywhere before pitching up at Sydney’s Manning Bar for a tête-à-tête with students and marginally bemused looking older folk looking for a bit of funk. Which was sadly missing. The horns section was notable for its absence and the new, trimmed-down Dogs presented a side more in keeping with More: a strong hip hop line up, the focus on the vocals, catchy choruses and occasional piano solos.

On stage we had the Two Dogs, MC Abstract Rude along with the musical accompaniment and they were joined, sporadically by the lyrically tight Blu Rum 13 from Washington, the fantastic N’Fa from 1200 Techniques (whose debut album is out now) and perennial Dogs favourite Hau from Koolism.

The crowd was warmed up by the DJ Primate, who’d laid out a mix of funk, breaks, hip-hop, ragga tinges and uplifting electronica. The dancefloor was ready for the main band, although any hope of continuing with some of the more energetic dance-moves carried out in this preamble was quickly displaced. The less than capacity crowd thronged on to the main dancefloor, waving their hands in the air – possibly as if the just didn’t care, that’s always a hard one to call.

We start off with some old tracks to get the crowd engaged and then it’s straight in to the new material. With visuals in perfect sync we hear and sing along to Definition, “Ooh, come follow…”. Of course the crowd starts jumping because there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that a hip-hop crowd loves more than a good sing-along. The great tracks from the album roll out with the guest MCs jumping on and off stage as appropriate. End Game in particular, one of the strongest tracks on the whole album, goes down real well, Blue Rum 13’s vocals a perfect counterpoint to this soul-inspired number. Some of the guitar solos put a huge smile on my face, and, with mister drummer nipping off to the toilet, N’Fa’s freestyle, clap-along vocals kept the party going on.

The new, harder edge to their sound works well, and as long as they keep getting guest vocalists of this quality the Dogs can only go from strength to strength. Their album is up there with best Aussie hip hop albums out at the moment. While it can’t topple Flying Colours for pure, unadulterated rapping prowess, the musicality they bring to their songs – even in the absence of hornists on the night – always means they’ll have a cross-genre appeal.

However, as always there were a few downsides. For one, the sound. It’s not that it was terrible, and the vocals came out okay, but generally the whole thing was so loud it distorted. In the name of roving, investigative journalism my plus one and I wandered around the room looking for the sweet spot and couldn’t find it. Not even when standing directly behind the sound engineer. Then there was the mercifully short excursion through Beyonce. Less said the better.

And, although this was later explained to me, the whole show finished on one of the most mystifying notes I’ve ever experienced at a hip hop gig. On the big screen behind the band Yul Brenner started having some sort of Ian Curtis-style epileptic fit to a punkish song. And everyone went mental! I pass it over to my plus one to explain: “Bloody Poms. It’s Midnight Oil, Power and the Passion.” I remain none the wiser but even so, this left me wanting More.