Well it’s been a busy week for gigs and i’m knackered! I caught Roots Manuva lastnight touring his latest album Slime & Reason and the gig was insane. The thing I love about seeing Roots Manuva, is out of all the live acts I’ve ever seen Mr Smith always comes across as one of your best friends. He’s very funny and a VERY charming fellow indeed.
Anyway back to the gig…Out of all the gigs I’ve seen at Edinburghs Liquid Rooms this one definately pushed the sound system to its limit! Roots Manuva is indeed very Dubwise. Last time I saw Roots he had a band backing him. This time he had two DJ’s and I must say he was much deadlier this time around!
The set started off with the new albums opener Again & Again…immediately the venue was destroyed by Bass and we knew we were in for a treat. Next up was Buff Nuff which really got the place jumping. The set was quite short at about an hour but he managed to fit the essentials in. The set was mainly the new material with a few cuts from Run Come Save Me, Awfully Deep and thankfully Movements from his debut.
As you can imagine the place went bonkers when Witness The Fitness dropped. Another highlight was the crowd participation in Dreamy Days. It was quite funny as certain tracks which I thought wouldn’t get much reaction did quite the opposite…infact they sounded superb and totally badass live. In between songs Roots Manuva had great banter with the crowd…the guy really is very funny and genuine…a real entertainer for sure. Roots also had a cutie girl singing with him and a great Jamaican/London(?) toaster who managed to steal the show a few times and stop Roots from getting too emotional with Edinburgh!
The merch stand had some great shit! Loads of Roots Manuva shirts, hoodies and a cool tracksuit type top that I scored as well as cheap vinyl and cd’s.
So the wrap up is Roots Manuva had Edinburgh jumping like mad and really is getting better and better on wax and in the flesh. A true legend and gentleman. Catch him if you can!
Here’s my cool top…
This was in small print on the back…
Roots Manuva’s posse at the momment are called The Banana Klan! Infact they busted into a badass Banana Klan digital Jamaican dub jam nidway through the gig! I scored my girlfriends brother a Banana Klan shirt. It had the same logo in a small print on the back…
