Thursday 8th April 2010 @ Anson Rooms, Bristol
With Support From: Faith SMX

Tonight the Anson Rooms is full of the general hustle and bustle and anticipation you find at most gigs with one slight hitch; it’s building to boiling point in here tonight. Having been made to wait nearly 45 minutes between support and our main event tonight, the crowd is becoming restless to say the least. Whether or not this is a ploy by the Plan B crew to build the tension of a riot so they can finally incite one themselves, we’ll never really know.

However, when it’s time for the bell to ring and the exhibition everyone is hear to see finally does get underway, it starts not with the ringing of a bell but rather with the vocal-styling of beat-box extraordinaire Faith SMX who puts on a short pre-show using nothing but his vocal chords to layer sounds that are unbelievable to some of us. He’s so good you’d be forgiven for calling him a complete show-off.

At the end of this, it leaves him only to introduce our leading man; Ben Drew aka Plan B. Widely referred to now as the rapper-cum-crooner, Plan B’s new material has both attracted a host of new followers and alienated some of his old faithful. However, it has to be said it’s the new Plan B that has allowed him endless radio play and given him his biggest UK headline tour to date. Fans of old Plan B will be disappointed tonight this is very much the new Plan B. The UK rapper, now laced with RatPack smoothness, kicks into his set providing both attitude and grace as he works his way through a host of new material taken from latest album, The Defamation Of Strickland Banks.

His band providing the solid backing for his performance are on top form, never intruding upon the star and leaving him largely as the general to dictate tonight’s proceedings. Clearly Plan B is a star on the rise although the set wasn’t without its flaws; some forgotten lyrics and having to re-start a song because of an interrupting, unwelcome noise, but you have to admire the arrogance and perfectionism to get it right.

A stunning encore including a jamming medley featuring both Kiss From A Rose and Forgot About Dre (where else are you ever going to see that?) bring the room right back up to a jumping pace. Plan B could be the 1940s showman for the 21st century.

www.time4planb.co.uk

Adam Hooper
Photos by Laura Palmer