Feb 6

Feb 6 Live Review: The Pharcyde @ O2 ABC2, Glasgow (20/03/18)

I don’t recall when I first heard The Pharcyde but I do recall the first song of theirs I heard. The track was Passin’ Me By from Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde and I was immediately hooked by the humour, the beats, the lyrics and the quality of the rapping on offer.

Upon listening to the rest of Bizarre Ride I was introduced to one of the most fun, entertaining and above all technically brilliant hip hop albums of the 90s.

It’s an album fondly remembered by many and for good reason. So, when I discovered The Pharcyde would be in Glasgow performing BR2TP in its entirety for the 25th Anniversary of its release I jumped at the chance, bought my ticket and slowly counted down the days.

On the day, I arranged to meet a friend in town, left work early, remembered my ticket first time around (read my Jamie Lenman live review and this will make sense) and made it on to the train to Glasgow.

Whilst on the train I noticed a post on the Facebook event page stating that the bar staff had been given a set of limited edition slip mats as a prize for some lucky person attending the gig. All you had to do was be in the venue at 7.30pm. I wittily wrote “I call dibs” in reply to the post, chuckled away to myself then thought that it would be pretty neat to actually win one those mats.

My train was about 20mins late arriving in Glasgow due to a “door fault” (we love you Scotrail) but I still had just enough time to meet my pal and get to the gig before 7.30pm.

Whilst standing outside my friend asked me if I’d remembered his ticket, definitely an “Oh Shit” moment but I quickly remembered he’d bought his own; bloody ticket troll.

Anyway, once we were in the venue, chatted for a bit and had a couple of drinks I realised over an hour had gone by and there had been no announcement about the slip mats. So, at my next visit to the bar, I asked a member of staff what was happening and was told that since I was the only person who had bothered to ask I’d won and the slip mats were mine! The moral of this story? Sometimes all you have to do is ask…oh and call dibs first of course.

This was a great way to kick off what was to be an excellent night. The Pharcyde didn’t come on until about 9pm but there were some good DJ’s spinning some classic hip hop beats and scratching away while we waited.

When The Pharcyde finally hit the stage they came out of the gates with style, intensity and full of energy to a crowd eager to blow the roof off singing along to “Oh Shit”. It’s a great opening track on the album and the experience of being in a room with a bunch of people shouting “Oh Shit” all together was quite special.

The group powered through the album tracks stopping for the occasional skit and crowd interaction. Members of the group crowd surfed, used an audience member’s copy of the record as a fan, got involved with the “here we fucking go” chant (that Scottish Crowds are well known for) and treated us to impersonations of other hip-hop legends (Biggie Smalls being a real highlight).

Other personal highlights included the opening of “I’m That Type of Nigga” (which had the whole room bellowing “Who is the nigga in charge over here? Who is the nigga in charge!?”), the chorus of “Officer” (“Please! Don’t pull me over Mr Officer, don’t pull me over Mr Officer, Please!”) and “Ya Mama” which opened with a skit about the police arriving for someone acting drunk and disorderly in the building, turning out to be, yeah you guessed it, Ya Mama!

It was great that they chose to maintain little skits like you’d find on the album rather than just rote perform the album tracks and this made the night an incredibly immersive experience. I was a little bit disappointed by the omission of “Quinton’s On The Way” but the performance was so good I can absolutely forgive that.

Despite not featuring on The Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, the set ended with a great rendition of “Runnin’”, the opener to their also excellent follow up album “Labcabincalifornia” and probably their most well known song.

Whilst the set ended here the show finished with a call for any rappers in the house to get up on stage. One member of the crowd obliged and proceeded to deliver some relatively decent freestyle raps over some improvised beat boxing. A fun end to what had been a pretty spectacular show.

If you like old-school 90s hip-hop full of bouncy, jazz rhythms, genuine humour and with varied and technically excellent raps then make sure you give “Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde” a listen for yourself. You absolutely wont regret it.

“Labcabincalifornia” is great too, a little more polished I’d say but for pure fun you can't beat Bizarre Ride.

If you get the chance to see The Pharcyde live I’d absolutely recommend that you do as they clearly haven’t lost any of their magic over the years.