Tuesday 08/02/05 DJ Format @ Borderline, London

A marathon old skool set from Brit B-boy DJ Format drew a bouncy crowd to the Borderline,  providing a welcome shot of big, bright, sexy energy on a damp London school night.

This groovy, quietly charismatic young whipper-snapper spins a buoyant web around the nodding, upbeat and predominantly male crowd, toying with snippets of blues and soul and weaving them into the inventive hip-hop / house crowd-pleasers that he is so well known for.

Format's arrival was heralded by a rather fab light show. It was like being at a Pink Floyd concert for a moment there. Well, not really. But pretty colours – good.

But it isn’t until the incandescent Canadian MC Abdominal bounds on that there is any verbal contact with the audience, and suddenly the energy levels get upped a few notches. ‘3 Feet Deep’, the first single from Format’s latest album is executed perfectly: slick, complex and glittering with darker beats, contrasting with ‘Ugly Brother’, laden with echoes of 70s porn funk, a cute, funny tribute to those under the shadow of their better looking siblings.

The prodigious talent of MC Abdominal is rammed even further down our grateful throats when he rattles off 8 bars of rap in one breath. Show off. But we love him for it.

His high octane presence is a compelling juxtaposition to the loping figure of the intense Format, and despite the vibrancy of his two MCs, no one can upstage him. He’s one of the best of his type.

My advice to you is: find out where he is next and then go and dance like an idiot in front of him. I mean when he’s DJ-ing, obviously…