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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
André Paine's rating
Reader rating
Apart from a few superstar rappers, hip-hop has generally lagged behind guitar music in the live business, so it was encouraging to see the Rock the Bells package tour reach Britain.
This was an evening for purists with a line-up including Nas, EPMD and the talented beatboxing and freestyling duo Supernatural & Scratch.
The Pharcyde reformed for this tour, too,
although a bizarre queuing system meant I nearly missed out on the Nineties act from LA. Still, just the final 10 minutes of their set suggested they deserve another shot.
“Everyone was saying Fatlip was on crack,” was rapper Fatlip’s way of addressing The Pharcyde’s previous split. Hilariously, the group then launched into Britney Spears’s My Prerogative complete with a daft dance routine.
EPMD were avowedly old school, with Erick Sermon pointing out that when they emerged in the late Eighties, members of the audience were still in nappies. Theirs was a no-frills approach: at one point the duo were rapping when a man in a baseball cap strolled on to tape up a tour banner that had fallen down.
Nas struck a similar note to EPMD with his demand for “real hip-hop”, sounding not unlike an ale enthusiast in the wrong kind of pub. But the New Yorker brought more drama as well as a big gold chain to the show.
There was a blazing rendition of Hip-Hop is Dead, followed by a return to his triumphant mid-Nineties debut album Illmatic. NY State of Mind and Life’s a Bitch were still sinuous and aggressive, and Nas then intelligently
re-worked Black President to mark the Obama election win.
The crowd danced and whooped, despite the lack of any expensive production values. But Nas was undoubtedly keeping it real.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
The show was all I expected it to be. Scratch and supernatural were superb with supernatural at one point freestyling and working in items passed to him by the crowd. EPMD and The Pharcyde were awesome, working their way through a few classics. Your reviewer said they did a version of a Britney Spears song forgetting that the song was originally performed by Bobby Brown, and I liked the little dance routine they did, very funny.
But things really blew up when Nas stepped on the stage, again pulling out alot of classics like one gun etc. And making a few comments on the Barack Obama win. All in all a good night
- Chris Carpenter, Oxford, UK
'My Prerogative' was actually originally done by Bobby Brown back in the 80s. Even if you weren't around then I would have expected a "music critic" to know that...
- Tom, London
