For all fans of local hip hop, if you were lucky enough to score tickets to the Melbourne leg of the Hilltop Hoods’ Cosby Sweater tour, odds are, come late Friday afternoon, you were more amped than a stage loaded with Marshalls about what was going to go down at Margaret Court Arena that night. Throw in support from Adelaide up-and-comer K21 and Blue Mountains party starters Thundamentals – recently nominated for a J award, ARIA, and possibly the Nobel Peace prize for their recent album So We Can Remember – and you had the mother of all musical stews set before you.
This was part of the Hoods’ first national headline tour since Speaking in Tongues in 2012. It was only two years ago, but somehow it still feels like it’s been too long. In between, they’ve supported Eminem across Australia, toured across Europe and North America, and packed out shows at will. They’re representing Australian hip-hop on the global stage and they’re doing us proud.
Always renowned for their live shows, the trio from the Adelaide Hills have only gotten better over time and are one of the few, truly genuine stadium acts in Australia. At Margaret Court Arena, audiovisuals and red-tinged smoke from the stage-lighting shrouded the stage as an ominous beat sounded, 5000 people eagerly awaiting the Hoods’ arrival. Then just like that, there they were, blasting into the set with party anthem Chase That Feeling. Hands were bouncing and the crowd was jumping and singing along to classics Recapturing the Vibe, Nosebleed Section,and The Hard Road.
The set comprised of songs from all of their albums from The Calling up to their most recent Walking Under Stars. One of the highlights of the set was Suffa goading Plutonic Lab on drums, the horn section, and MC Pressure into upping the tempo for the last stanza of Still Standing to an insane pace on repeat, whipping the crowd into a frenzy as many shower time rappers ran out of oxygen trying to keep pace with Pressure’s rhymes. By far the most powerful song in the set was Pressure’s solo track Through the Dark from the latest album, a conversation with his nine-year-old son who was diagnosed with Leukaemia. The crowd was awash with lighters and phone lights raised in the air, and the emotion in the song was enough to send shivers down your spine.
The Hoods closed out the set with an encore of the title track from the tour, Cosby Sweater, getting support acts K21 and the Thundamentals on stage to spit out some extra verses, before ending with the heavier Rattling the Keys to the Kingdom, shaking the foundations of the newly redeveloped Margaret Court Arena, and probably putting the fear of God into the Katy Perry fans next door at Rod Laver.
BY EBEN ROJTER
Photo by Mark Stanjo
Loved: Inclusion of a live horn section on the tour, supplementing DJ Debris and Plutonic Lab
Hated: That accessing the correct entry for Margaret Court Arena is akin to reading a map in Swahili.
Drank: A bottle of Pump water in four seconds flat post-gig.
