My review of Tha Pharcyde @ Jazz Cafe, London 20th July 2004 (Now with Pics!!)

[On The Edge of Insanity]

I had been looking forward to this gig for ages, and they certainly didn't disappoint. The support act was Athletic, who is apparantly from Long Beach, part of a crew called the 100 percenters or something like that. He was actually pretty tight, his beats were slamming and the rhymes of him and some other dude from the same group were real dope. He even had a couple of tracks with the good old G Funk whistle in the chorus. The crowd were pretty amped when he departed, and the DJ kept the crowd live playing real dope mid nineties hiphop mixed with stuff like Little Brother, Black Star and shit.

At about half nine the Pharcyde finally came out, along with their DJ, a drummer and a keyboard player. The drummer was real dope, and managed to play every one of their tracks to perfection. As Fatlip has left the group it was only Booty Brown and Imani actually playing, and when they walked out they both looked stoned as fuck, especially Imani who seemed to be struggiling to keep his eyes open. But as soon as the music came on for "The Drop" they sprung to life, along with the crowd. I managed to get in the second row, so I had a great view as they went thru a mix of old and new material (their new stuff actually sounded kinda dope, might have to check the new album), always keeping the crowd entertained with their slightly off beat dancing and brilliant chemistry. Along with their DJ cutting everything up real nice, and the live band elements, I have to say it was definitely one of the better hiphop shows I have been to. They left the stage to massive applause after doing "Passin Me By", and "Runnin" back to back, which got the crowd extremely hyped. Their hype man then came out and did the normal, if y'all want the Pharcyde to come back out here then make some muthafucking noise speech, which the crowd duly obliged to, and out they came for another half an hour of pure dopeness. Starting off rapping over a classic 80s hiphop beat (the actual song the beat is from has escaped me at this moment), and then going back and doing most of the songs they hadn't already done from Bizzarre Ride 2 Tha Pharcyde, such as "Yo Mama" which caused many a laugh in the audience, and many more, which had the crowd thinking they were back in 92 again. They did a couple more new tracks ("just to make sure we pick the album up"), and then ended with the B Boy track which is the last track on Bizzarre Ride, before leaving the stage to mass adulation.

I left the venue very satisfied to know that even though they are now only a two piece, Tha Pharcyde are certainly still one of the dopest groups around, and they don't half put on one hell of a live show. I would recommend anyone to see them perform, you'll definitely get your monies worth.

[Don Seer]

cool..

btw i've heard their new album a couple times.. its a bit hit n miss in places.. but what i felt, i really felt..

worth checking out 

[Que (signing off)]

Good review DJ.

[funkstylz]

passin me by damn tite track

[On The Edge of Insanity]

Pictures added to original post.