thought the rinsessions night was really good but the sound was really harsh. it was almost painful at times as the mcs were all shouting plus their mics seemed to be turned right up which was a bit jarring. i had hoped the mcs would be on a stage or something, not stuck in the dj booth with those crappy tv screens in the background. i left about 3.30 when a bunch of mediocre slew dem mcs (or people in their crew) started grabbing the mic. the venue itself was pretty devoid of atmosphere but people seemed into it, one of the girls on the door said the upstairs would open up when more people came in but it didnt happen. it was odd that there want that much dancing but there wasnt that much audience reaction on the whole. most people stood numbly/blankly/moodily and fixated on the MCs the whole night. the high points i suppose were when jammer did murkle man (even if it was over the actual vocal track) and skepta came on and everyone joined in with the 'go on then go on then' and 'oh my diddy!'.
some random thoughts on the night -
i might be missing the point here but what is a point of reloads when instead of actually redoing those bars, you just stop and grind everything to a halt. the amount of mcs that did this on wednesday was annoying. it didnt heighten the tension or have you craving more, it just stopped the momentum.
MCs need to learn about mic control. all the shouting is fucking annoying (this isnt limited only to grime though). and i dont know if they were drunk or the monitors were messing up or if they just have bad timing but i could have sworn that half the time, some of the rhymes were out of sync or slightly behind the beat.
apart from roll deep (wiley especially with his 'ole ole ole ole!' chants), no one was really trying to hype the crowd or get everyone going, it was just like 'yeah were here to do our rhymes, we dont care what you think'. i suppose its a change from cheesy audience participation but some sort of plan or routine would be nice (i know its not a concert per se, but if everyones just standing around like a gig, then you might as well entertain them)...
set of the night for me was newham gens - they were really tight, the rapport between footsie and d double was really strong, they looked like they knew what they were doing and had some focus, plus tubby's mixing/selection was virtually flawless.