Phrase, The Funkoars @ TheCorner, Melbourne (10/7/2009)

Mon 27th Jul, 2009 in Gig Reviews

The Funkoars rolled into Melbourne in the middle of their three month national tour promoting their newest offering, The Hangover. The perennial party boys had in tow Adelaide emcee Vents and Melbourne’s very own Phrase to help get a near capacity crowd to work out just what their malfunction was.

A couple of B Boys busted out early to some classic hip hop as the crowd steadily filled into the Corner Hotel on what was an exceptionally chilly Friday night in Melbourne. Vents made a fashionably late arrival to the stage to get proceedings underway with songs from his 2007 release, Hard To Kill. Before long he had the early birds na na na-ing along to the testosterone injected Love Song. The young South Australian screams potential but some diversity in his tracks is defiantly needed.

The crowd swelled considerably to see in their home town boy Phrase shake out some tunes from Clockwork. The album has been spoken about largely thanks to some impressive cameos and you could tell from the moment he stepped on stage Phrase wanted to show that it takes more than a few guest appearances to make good hip hop. From the first song, his own adaptation of the Presets’ My People, Phrase infected the room with his energy. The man was obviously ecstatic to be playing to his home crowd.

In some ways the crowd was lucky to be treated to seeing Phrase spit his wares that night, with the album coming very close to never seeing the light of day. That was before some help from Triple J pushed the album into release, a fact which was acknowledged before he launched into the albums title track.

Fiance Jade MacRae was welcomed to the stage to help out with the vocals on All Good, Phrase’s tribute to his tough youth which he some how manages to pull off, despite the cliché nature of the topic. Before exiting the stage with a raucous performance of Spaceship, Phrase profusely thanked his fellow Melbournites for coming out and encouraged more support of other local emcees. The applause lasted for quite a few minutes.

The scene was set when the Funkoars rampaged onto the stage to the delight of the punters. Outside of the Hilltop Hoods and Bliss and Eso, the ‘Oars are arguably the country’s biggest hip hop outfit. Drapht may have been the only man who could have pulled a crowd of any similar size. Expectations were met early, the boys getting the crowd bounding for a closer look with their world view in Reign on the Masses.

The ‘Oars were balls of energy on stage, Trails looking like a pinball while throwing himself off the shoulders of band mates Hons and Sester, while DJ Reflux’s wrists were a blur over the turntables. Despite being halfway through an extensive tour the boys had lost none of the show man ship which had seen them become festival favourites since they dropped Who’s Your Step Daddy? in 2003.

And although it was the Hangover Tour, some classic Funkoar tunes featured prominently in the set list. The boys threw back to tracks such as And Now For Something Completely Different and What I Want to the delight of a surprising number of old school – œOars fans in attendance.

After singing in Hons’ 26th year on the earth with a rousing recital of Happy Birthday, the crowd Vents was invited back on stage to help the Funkoars belt out Double Dutch before leaving the stage.

The crowd stayed where they were and begged for more. Happy to deliver the – œOars returned with their take on the 70s psych rock track Black Sally, the first single from the Hangover. The punters lapped it up and all one could see at the front of stage was a couple of hundred fists being thrown into the air.

Walking out the front of the Corner the electricity had not left the air. People talked excitedly amongst their mates as they hatched plans to continue the night’s revelry at nearby establishments, not quite ready to retire for the evening. You couldn’t help but feel that the irony of the next day’s hangover may be lost on them.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE GIG HERE