Against the background of Deckwrecka's lo-fi hip-hop set, 23 Skidoo sauntered on from stage left and began playing the distinctive trance-funk of The Gospel Comes to New Guinea. This unobtrusive entrance was typical of the band's performance. Unflashy and unpretentious, Alex Turnball (drums and percussion), Johnny Turnball (guitar), Fritz Catlin (drums and percussion) and Sketch Martin (bass) seemed overawed by their first gig in 16 years, and they came across as a little sedated.
Rhythm has always been central to the 23 Skidoo sound. Twenty years ago, they applied their feral swathes of noise, loops and frenzied percussion to the US funk of James Brown and the Afrofunk of Fela Kuti. It was revolutionary then, but now it is as commonplace as a loaf of white bread. As the "original punks on funks" they have seen their legacy appropriated by jungle, drum'n'bass, techno and big beat and extended their reach to UK hip-hop with the Ronin label.
Their old shows reputedly used to scare the hell out of their audience. But that has all changed. Older and wiser, 23 Skidoo have moved on, appearing laid-back, mellow elder statesmen. The show was divided on almost generational lines. On one side there was the old guard from the 1980s: Loose Ends' former singer, Carl McIntosh and the Aswad horn section. On the other, rappers Rodney P, Skitz and Roots Manuva took on the baton for the younger generation.
For a band that make such beautiful music 23 Skidoo took great pains to present it in an offhand manner. It was as if they were admitting that their work was dull and mainstream. The fire has gone from their bellies. That said, the evening would have been an entirely different experience if the sound quality had not been so awful throughout. Things improved when a brass section arrived for the neo-tropical Crossfire. Dennis Rollins on trombone, Ray Carless on saxophone and Eddie Thornton on trumpet propelled the music onwards with fast, funky playing. Their sophistication allowed them to invade the rest of the music rather than play against it.
The rappers fared worse. Skitz and Rodney P hit the stage running, but their requests for "arms in the air" went unheeded. To their credit, they did try to orchestrate their flow around the brass section and some ferocious drumming by Alex Turnball. 23 Skidoo's boisterous playing reached a manic peak on Where U At, the duet between Roots Manuva and Carl McIntosh.
With McIntosh crooning the title, the eminently likeable Manuva showed why he is one of the best MCs in the UK. His display highlighted his verbal and rhythmic dexterity to devastating effect.
The material that followed - IV, Apocalypse, Meltdown and Dusk to Dawn - operated in that grey area called "the jam". With little to differentiate these jazz-funk-lite instrumentals from each other, the band could not quite escape that fiddly non- committal rut - I mean groove - that is the undoing of so much contemporary music. However, they did treat us to a rousing rendition of a track that has caused much controversy in recent years. As the bass-line riff of the 1982 hit The Coup reverberated around the venue, you could not deny that it sounded remarkably like the Chemical Brothers's Grammy-winning hit, Block Rocking Beats.
