I reluctantly dragged myself down to Southampton’s Guildhall to see Jordan Stephens and Harley Alexander-Sule that make up Rizzle Kicks. Having bought my ticket months and months ago I had nearly forgotten about the gig as the date got closer and closer. Unfortunately I missed both the support acts, Little Nikki and Mikill Pain but heard good things from those stood around me. Both of my previous experiences with Rizzle Kicks have come from festivals; Radio1’s Hackney Weekend and Bestival.
The two lads bounded on stage with so much energy I was wondering if they would (and if they physically could) maintain this throughout their set. If i’m perfectly honest I found the set exceedingly average. This isn’t due to a lack of talent I just feel that Stereo Typical has run it’s course and having seen a pretty much identical set twice before I found myself getting bored and thinking I could simply listen to the album back in the comfort of my own home. Having said this there were some distinct benefits from seeing them live. For example their trumpet player was extraordinary and really enhanced the songs. At times he would play jazz solos where the boys would just dance around. I definitely appreciated him as a musician. Other touches were the 007 theme tune they like to throw into their set as well as a version of the Beastie Boys classic ‘(You gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)’. Another element that I hadn’t seen before was there version of Ed Sheeran’s ‘You Need Me I Don’t Need You’.
The audience was made up of children and their parents. I was in fact the tallest within my initial surroundings, at 5ft2 this is a very rare occurrence at gigs. Having said this it was good to see young people going out to see live music and I’m glad Rizzle Kicks have influenced this, if this means that in the future they will spend their money seeing local bands then I can’t complain. Their set included most of their songs from their debut album Stereo Typical including hits such as Fat Boy Slim produced ‘Mama Do The Hump’ which received unanimous praise from the crowd, and their latest single ‘Dreamers’. I definitely enjoyed their live performance of ‘Prophet’, I have to admit to it being one of my most played songs on iTunes. They also played a brand new track entitled ‘That’s Classic’; from a first listen I was relatively impressed.
Overall I felt that it wasn’t a complete waste of my time yet I can’t admit to being blown away by the boys. I’m afraid the novelty of Rizzle Kicks has worn off. Lets hope album number two will reignite the fire for them.
