Walking into a small Leeds venue and being the only one of four people in the room is a little worrying for the start of a gig.
A cross mixture of The Beastie Boys and a rock band, Wales’s own Astroid Boys are up first crashing to earth with their rock hip hop. As the crowd gets bigger the dual MC’s tell people to pull in closer to the stage to witness their impressive live show. With small pits opening up during their set the crowd really get into them, the band leave the stage having impressed alot of people.
Local band Marmozets come on stage to a mediocre reception, having gotten alot of praise in numerous rock magazines for their two latest EP releases the band has to impress and live up to those praises tonight. Playing through new songs from their ‘Vexed’ EP the band are definitely energetic and full of passion, with guitarist Sam jumping in the crowd numerous times the band play a good solid set. Some audience members are left confused at times as with the math type, odd time changes mid song it is a required taste of music and not a genre of music some people would happily listen to.
As the guitar comes in for ‘Ghetto Ambiance,’ Hyro Da Hero launches into his set perfectly and getting the crowd going straight away. As Hyro gains momentum he works his way through some of his catchiest songs, ‘Beam Me Up Scotty’, ‘Man In My City’ and ‘We Still Popular’ all sound epic. Obviously Hyro isn’t like any other hip hop artist out there; instead using a live band it gives him that rockier and more accessible quality within the rock genre.
Before Hyro starts off the song ‘Dity South Rock’ he states “I’m going to take you back to the dirty south, Texas, where I’m from” showing that he loves not just his music but where his roots are as well.
A moment in which everyone will remember is when the whole crowd put their middle fingers in the air to rock along to the song ‘Fuck You (Say It To Your Face)’, swaying side to side at the end of the song it highlights just how many fans he has gained in such a short space of time. Going off stage and coming back on for the perfect encore and finish to his set. ‘Sleeping Giants’ sets people off going crazy. With Hyro becoming more and more popular, mixing rock with hip hop he deserves alot of success and with his high energy live sets and hard work ethic he’s on his way to better things and bigger venues.
5/5
Setlist:1.Ghetto Ambiance
2.Beam Me Up Scotty
3.Dirty South Rock
4.We Still Popular
5.Conversation With Hip Hop
6.B-Boy
7.Tape Rock
8.Man In My City
9.Fuck You (Say It To Your Face)
10.Section 8
11.The Worlds Stage
12.Average Man
13.Glimpse
Encore
14.Sleeping Giants
Words by Aaron Wilson
