Recap | HPX 2014 Day 5

What a week! Before we do a whole round up, let’s reflect on last night (I wish we went to reflections because that would have been PUNNY). We kicked off the night by heading to Forum for the INSANE line-up. First up was Tennyson, a brother-sister duo consisting of Tess on drums and Luke on the decks and keys. Luke was definitely feeling the beat as his lankiness seemed to move as an extension of the music he was emitting. Next up was Halifax’s own Ryan Hemsworth. After attending his HPX interview yesterday, we knew he was a bit of an eccentric dude and his visuals definitely highlighted that. Who knew he liked dogs in costume so much? His music was unreal, playing fresh mixes of his songs, including a brilliant Blink-182 remix (the feels were real). What was strange to us, though, was that the audience didn’t really seem to be into it. Maybe because the majority of the crowd was there to see Danny Brown, whose beats are wayyyyy dirtier. However, his lack of interaction with the crowd could have also been to blame. He threw out a few “hey”s and “I love yous" but that’s about it. As a notoriously shy guy we suggest maybe some sort of hype man on stage with him when it’s a crowd rearing to go for some dirty, hard-hitting beats.

Thankfully, Danny Brown was relatively on time for his set, and holy $h!t was it HYPE. The crowd was massive and moved as one to DB’s beats and lyrical structure like a wave. Danny Brown has been doing this for a while, and you could tell, as it was definitely one of the most fun shows of the entire festival. Playing classics like “Grown Up” and “Kush Coma”, more people were rapping along to DB’s tunes even more so than when Raekwon and Ghostface Killah hit the stage with Wu-Tang hits.

Danny Brown’s bass then blew us to the Seahorse where we took in the dub club reggae sounds of Dub Kartel. Front man, Kyle McKracken, is one heck of a performer; ping ponging around the stage like a fish out of water. There are seven guys in the band - practically a small orchestra - but they play like a well-oiled machine, with each dude bringing something to the performance. Their set was a full two hours but the time flew by, bringing up about six different MC’s to play with them. Charlotte Day Wilson was our fave MC, scatting like Ella Fitzgerald herself. Again, the crowd at Seahorse is always so great. Everyone dancing, singing along and moshing like they’ve never moshed before. We’d heard no shortage of rumours about what was happening after Seahorse. Starting with Danny Brown playing at house X, turning in to Danny’s DJ playing at house Y which then turned in to Ryan Hemsworth in the basement of shop Z. And really, what better way is there to seal off the week than chilling in a tiny basement with maybe 50 people with RH shredding on his laptop up front? Sometimes rumours do become reality....And Hemsworth's music selection is pretty on point. Safe to say it was a perfect end to a perfect week.