By Oli Marlow

Forum, Kentish Town, London - 9 February 2005

Finally, after months of waiting (for those who couldn’t make the summer festivals after spending far too much money at the stupidly overpriced Glastonbury) the glorious expedition in sound that Jurassic 5 represents rolled into town for a one-off headline show at the Kentish Town Forum. Providing both the warm up and headline slots, J5’s roster set to attacking the ears of each and every member of the crowd straight away with Cut Chemist taking to the decks the first hour-long DJ set.

Seeing Cut mix is like watching the plot to a cinematic masterpiece forming before your eyes and ears, and it’s something that every beat merchant of any age or interest should see before fleeing this mortal realm. Class A tune selection (Edan’s ‘Emcees Smoke Crack’), impeccable beat matching/juggling and scratching skills made Cut’s set worth the ticket price alone; but wait, isn’t the backbone of J5 two DJs…?

DJ Nu-Mark took advantage of the crowd’s trance-like fixation with Cut Chemist and appeared out of nowhere, armed with stacks of vinyl and his usual performance flare and trickery. Spinning his own style of laid back grooves and crisply compressed drums, he successfully followed Cut’s sometimes offensively brilliant set with a different manner of hip hop.

Nu-Mark’s versatility proved the spectacle of the night as he swapped from decks to drum machines, live drums to a Fisher Price-like instrument that when syncopated to his drum machine provided a humorous interlude before the main course.

Immaculate deliveries and sublime execution of rhymes from emcees Chali 2na, Akil, Zaakir and Marc 7 filled the already electric atmosphere of the Forum in no time at all as the sickly sweet smell of a success emanated from every pore of the performers and hands of the audience.

With backs to the audience, both DJs slowly and apprehensively walked out from the behind the decks to suddenly turn and face the audience bearing Public Enemy-style emblems around their necks. Only they weren’t emblems, they were audio equipment. Cut Chemist had a turntable round his neck and Nu-Mark bore a drum machine on his chest and they proceeded to scratch and slap there way through an interlude to beat all interludes.

With all that had gone before and the emcees coming and going throughout the event, performing everything from duets to full group floor bangers, it was no surprise that there was another treat in store for all who had gathered, in the form of a freestyle session featuring a special guest. Roots Manuva entered on stage to the most rapturous applause of the night and proceeded to dazzle and please, although his freestyle skills were overshadowed by the talents of the four J5 emcees.

The evening was a blatant success with Jurassic performing material from all three J5 albums (‘LP’, ‘Quality Control’, ‘Power in Numbers’) and with talents like the ones all members of the extended J5 family possess, it’s just a shame that this train won’t come around very often.

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