Public Enemy - Pohoda 2012 review
'Two solid hours of Public Enemy is something to behold'
Photographer:Rosie Shaw
10 July 2012
It may take a nation of millions to hold them back, but tonight, in the sweltering Pohoda Dance Dome, all it takes is
a missing mixer. "DJ Lord ain't got the mixer". Chuck D hollers,"but this is the real hip-hop". No doubts there, these guys
virtually are hip hop. As their logo behind them proudly declares, this year marks 25 years of a band whose importance to
the genre is virtually incalculable.
During the opening 30 mins, the significance of Lord's missing equipment becomes
increasingly clear. Flavor Flav does his best to liven
things up, but it's not until Lord is ready, that the band get off the mark. After that it's nearly two hours of super-charged
rap, double the Pohoda quota.
Chuck D's unique voice (you can't train to sound like that), is inevitably the killer weapon of the performance, well,
that and Flavor Flav's clock, of course. Flav himself
takes the drum kit for one tune, and proves he's no slouch, before announcing to the crowd that "I've been round the world
and I ain't never seen a DJ match my man Lord". Demonstrating his turntable prowess by messing with Nirvana's 'Smells like Teen Spirit', Lord ably shows how he got the top job (after Terminator
X went into Ostrich farming). Fight the Power follows, sending the crowd into a frenzy of bouncing.
Two solid hours
of Public Enemy is something to behold. In light of the
25 years, surely they and not Chase and Status, should have graced the main stage for this slot - a fact not lost on D. Injustice
also preoccupies Flav and at the end of the gig, alone on stage, he reminds everyone here of the twin evils of racism and
separatism. Fight the Power indeed.
-- Jon Wright
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