Live Review: The Roots, Urthboy

Gone are the days when hip hop was a ghetto. Or, at least, gone are the days when it had to stay there. Now thanks to the likes of local support (and indie pioneer) Urthboy, and international headliner The Roots, hip hop really is the music of any people who want to jump on board and have some fun with it.

Kicking off early Urthboy provided a welcome to country literally and musically, storytelling and grooving his way through hits past and present, as well as some sweet little 'this is how I got here' moments. Even brave enough to admit a past trying to pick up while dancing to Britpop in The Cross, Urthboy and awesome band (including flawless vocalist Jane Tyrrell) introduced the night, as well as no doubt, getting the local scene on The Roots' radar.

Just over half an hour later MC Black Thought took the mic leading The Legendary Roots Crew to the stage, backed by a seven-strong cast with the gorgeous ?uestlove towering above on a huge drum rider. Though ?uest's usual huge 'fro was contained in a red beanie, that was the only real piece of the puzzle missing in terms of The Roots legend (and as disappointment goes, we can live with that). As Black Thought lead the charge, bass, guitar and sousaphone (Mark Kelley, Kirk 'Captain' Douglas and Damon "Tuba Gooding Jr" Bryson) paced, pranced, danced and generally played the hell out of it. At one point Black Thought went the Full Panto (“Are they dancing behind me? They'd better not be doing that!”), while it seemed the group's mission to crack up the boys banging away at the back (achieved, several times).

Musical highlights were hard to pick as there wasn't so much a set list as set stream, with songs merging and emerging in between epic solos and samples for the fun of it. In addition to singles like The Seed, Proceed, Here I Come (reclaimed from Jimmy Fallon) and the gorgeous You Got Me (complete with half of Sydney doing the vocal line), interludes like gratuitous mini-covers of Sweet Child O' Mine and Jungle Boogie were  just gravy.