New Brisbane

I was pretty excited a few months back when I first heard that Naughty By Nature were going to be at Good Vibes, along with a bunch of my other favourite old school hip hop groups, but then I got lazy and didn’t get tickets. So, I was even more excited to discover that my favourite hip hop group of all time would be doing another show, this time in Brisbane at Mystique in Fortitude Valley, and I knew I wasn’t going to waste this second chance.

Naughty By Nature
Wednesday, February 24 2010

Mystique @ The Arena
210 Brunswick Street
Fortitude Valley
www.mystiquebrisbane.com

You see, I grew up with my music taste being dictated by whatever would blare through the wall from my big brother’s stereo in the next room. And while I was raised in what was predominantly white suburbia in Canada, hip hop and rap always spoke to me. It wasn’t like I could relate to the glamour of the high life that was Cristal and Benjamin’s, or the rougher aspects of growing up in the ghetto or the projects - it was just simply the music. Hip hop, to me, has always been about the rythm, the beat and the wordcraft that goes into the lyrics. And among all the groups and artists out there, to me one stood out above the rest - and that was Naughty by Nature.

So when I found out they were going to be at Mystique, I had to go. Tickets were on sale at the Mystique Concept Store, at what I thought was a surprisingly reasonable price and so I made the arrangements and Wednesday Feb 24 saw me and my entourage heading down to the club ready for a night of awesomeness. Despite showing up fashionably late, there was still a pretty big line out front when we got there - apparently Naughty By Nature had stopped for some food - and we were forced to wait for the venue to open. But, it wasn’t long before the group arrived and the gates opened.

Once inside, the club was pretty empty and we were surprised by the lack of people - we had expected a huge turnout for Naughty By Nature! However, this seemed to be a temporary situation and as the supporting performers cycled through their acts, Mystique absolutely packed out. It seemed like everybody in town wanted to come see these guys live. As for the supporting acts, there was an awesomely diverse selection of performers, ranging from beatboxers to dance groups, all of which pieced together to psych us up for the main gig. Of worthy mention were the Australian/Kiwi group Beat Kamp, who put on a fantastic show despite a large part of their act being to insert their name into classic old school hip hop hits.

As Naughty By Nature finally took the stage with Hip Hop Hooray, the crowd went absolutely nuts. As the night went on, they continued to please and went through most of the hit tracks on their Nature’s Finest compilation album - although I was personally a little disappointed that they didn’t do 1,2,3, which is by far one of my favourite songs. I wasn’t too bothered though, because they performed enough of the other tracks I love that I was losing my shit like a 14 year old girl at a Jonas Brother’s concert.

Looking around the crowd, I was a bit surprised to see that most of the audience was pretty young. At one stage there were three girls in front of me that couldn’t have been much older than 18, and I laughed to notice that they barely danced during OPP but all whipped out their camera phones and went nuts when Naughty By Nature did a short cover of Men at Work’s Down Under.

In addition to doing their own songs, the group turned the event into an homage to old school hip hop and performed everything from House of Pain’s Jump Around to Tupac’s California. An interesting twist, but I guess they know that anyone who’s going to attend one of their concerts is probably going to appreciate some of these other classic hip hop tracks. And the crowd certainly responded.

So for someone like me, who loves hitting the clubs and having an awesome night out, but that doesn’t make it to too many concerts or gigs, this was an absolute treat. A gift, and I still can’t believe my favourite group came to Brisbane. My sister-in-law who lives in Canada can’t believe it either, and hates me for getting to go, so I made sure I tagged her on all my facebook photos and videos that I put up from the night! Naughty By nature? Awesome. Mystique at the Arena? Awesome venue for them to perform at.

- Ross