Tuesday 28/10/03 Scratch Perverts @ LMUSU, Leeds

After many weeks in the wilderness, Original Heroes have finally returned to reaffirm their position as the only contender to The Drum Major’s hip-hop hegemony in Leeds. An unprecedented flurry of activity has seen the Heroes inaugurate a regular night in Bradford and even host the closing party for the recent Saltaire Festival. But it’s the Leeds night that’s the real jewel in the crown, and with a new wallet-friendly venue and Scratch Perverts following hot on the heals of Rodney P and Skitz, things are hotting up.

The Perverts are on world-conquering form. From minute one they make it clear they’ve come for a party, and that vibe never lets up. Despite the jaw-dropping scratch showpieces dropped liberally into the set, this is not turntablism. For all the skills on display, the two-man, four-deck formation concentrate on moving the crowd. And initially they make good on that promise. Peppering the set with the usual suspects (Roots Manuva, Missy, Beasties, etc.), they string the big guns together with awesome routines over lesser known tracks. Mr Scruff’s 'Ug' will never sound as good again without deckstrous scratching to counterpoint the squelching bassline, and the segue of the Beasties’ 'Intergalatic' into Shadow’s 'Organ Donor' is fantastic.

I’m sceptical of their decision to go drum’n’bass about an hour in, but the crowd stay with them, and within a couple of minutes I’m skanking along like it’s 1995 all over again. D’n’b may not be the forward-thinking genre it once was, but it still makes great dancefloor fodder, so what the hell.

It’s not long before that orchestra announces the arrival of Pharoahe Monch’s 'Simon Says' and much hysteria from the crowd. This is where it gets messy, though. Whereas the opening set was a well-balanced reconstruction of old and new, the Perverts abandon their creativity for an unrepentant display of overt crowd-pleasing. With little flair on show, they resort to spinning gold (Method Man’s 'Release Yo’Delf') into straw (that awful Panjabi MC record; The Prodigy, for God’s sake!). Finally they rescue the performance with a return to drum’n’bass in the form of Ganja Kru’s mighty 'Super Sharp Shooter'. If only Scratch Perverts had the courage of their convictions and didn’t resort to lowest common denominator floor-filler, they’d have turned a good show into something truly magical.