The Bug feat. Flowdan: Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds – live review

The Bug feat. Flowdan | Padawan Sound
Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds
Thursday 3rd November 2022

Andy Brown heads to Belgrave Music Hall to catch The Bug and MC Flowdan in full effect. He shares his thoughts for Louder Than War.

It’s getting pretty cold outside but things are guaranteed to heat up at The Bug gig tonight. Shivering my way through the doorway at the Belgrave Music Hall, I check my pockets for my trusty earplugs (something of a necessity) and prepare myself for the glorious cacophony of noise and riddim to come. Beat maker and sonic architect, Kevin Martin aka The Bug has been in the speaker-shaking business for a long time now. Martin has explored the extremes, from the jazzy, experimental industrial noise of GOD to the blissful, ambient soundscapes of King Midas Sound. That’s the tip of a rather sizeable iceberg too. The Bug is perhaps his most well-known moniker and one that has given us some incredible dancehall, dub and hip-hop alongside all kinds of noisy, electronic experimentation. Last year’s Fire LP was an absolute beast of a record. Tonight, will not be restrained.

The room is bathed in red light as Paddy H-K aka Padawan Sound warms us up. The self-styled armchair hedonist drops a selection of atmospheric beats and dubstep bangers to get us in the mood. Halloween has come and gone but the Belgrave looks like a scene from John Carpenter’s The Fog right now. The smoke machine is working overtime as the crowd begins to shuffle in time to the beats. It might just be me but I feel like his set gets louder as it goes on, allowing the crowd to acclimatise before the inevitable onslaught. Through the smoke I can see The Bug’s ridiculously large speaker, puncturing the clouds like some ominous monolith. “There is one other thing” comes the voice on Loefah’s dubstep classic The Goat Stare, “no one is to leave this room”. There’s no escape now.

Dressed in his regulation cap and hoody, The Bug takes his position behind his laptop, decks and electronic kit. He’s ready for business. That business being the dissemination of beats, noise and heavy dub soundscapes. He catches us off guard, playing Roger Robinson’s track The Missing. An incredibly powerful poem written about the Grenfell Tower disaster. Expectations are turned on their head again when he follows this up with the apocalyptic but strangely disarming old-school reggae of Jacob Miller’s Ghetto On Fire. The crowd begins to sway in appreciation. The intensity levels are turned up a few notches with the arrival of the Poison Dart riddim, strobing lights and bass that vibrates your entire body. It’s complete sensory overload as the room swells with the kind of danceable dread that The Bug does so well.

It’s at the halfway mark that grime legend Marc Veira aka MC Flowdan arrives to take everything up to the next level. Silence fills the smoke-filled room as the MC’s silhouette appears behind the microphone. Fat Mac hits like a ten-tonne truck as the humongous chorus pushes everything into the red, “Fat Mac/ Ninety/ Heavyweight/ Jumbo”. Flowdan is a conduit of good vibes and insane levels of energy. Pressure sounds immense while Function is absolutely wild. The dynamic duo of dub and grime, The Bug and Flowdan sound utterly fierce right now. The iconic Skeng seems to end prematurely as Flowdan stops to take a much-needed drink. “Where was I?” he asks before the track kicks back in like an almighty sonic thunderclap.

Flowdan’s Horror Show Style is greeted with arms aloft enthusiasm and levels of energy you wouldn’t usually see on a Thursday night. At one point, he asks the crowd to get their lighters and phones out as the house lights are turned down and the crowd starts dancing in the dark. Bruce Springsteen would be proud. Wherever The Bug goes, the weekend vibes follow. You probably wouldn’t hire them for your kid’s birthday but the duo sure knows how to throw a party. Flowdan thanks us for “representing properly” before the lights come up and we’re left happy and dazed in the aftermath of the show. As my friend so eloquently puts it, wowza!

~

All photos by Jim Mumby | Find him on Instagram.

The Bug is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Bandcamp.

Flowdan is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Bandcamp.

Padawan Sound can be found on Facebook, Instagram and SoundCloud.

All words by Andy Brown. You can visit his author profile and read more of his reviews for Louder Than War here.

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Source: louderthanwar.com