One Day @ Enmore Theatre

The Enmore was a hometown venue for the Inner West hip hop supergroup One Day, but the show was about so much more than just the Mainline album they dropped this year. It was a history lesson, a retrospective, the culmination of years of rhyming and roaming and playing together. Each of the acts that make up the group supported themselves and each other, showcasing their individual journeys while collaborating at every turn.

Witnessing the intrinsic connections shared by the players gave the songs they did together even more gravitas than what can be heard on the record – there are rawer emotions and a deeper anger, which can be lost under layers of production, that rush to the surface during a live performance.

Multitalented rapper/producer/crooner Joyride kicked things off clad in pink tie-dye before “kids from the suburbs looking for something to do” Jackie Onassis brought a set worthy of the ‘Special Occasion’. MC Solo joined them for the apt ‘Back Home Again’, and they made the night by bringing back Joyride for a ‘Drunk In Love’ cover.

Joyride spun tunes as Spit Syndicate played songs like ‘Pretty Girls Make Graves’ and ‘Amazing’, before throwing out their cover of ‘Latch’ with Left’s Sarah Corry joining them onstage. Horrorshow were indeed kings amongst many, dropping ‘No Rides Left’ alongside ‘Nice Guys Finish Last’ and their twin cover of ‘Can I Kick It’ and ‘Walk On The Wild Side’.

The group then reassembled clad all in black, taking the stage as the headlining One Day and opening with ‘Many Hands’. The train line motif that literally brought them together was put into words for ‘Mainline’, and the braggadocio-laden ‘Milka’ was another highlight. Reggae-driven ‘S.D.R.O.’ elicited some choice crowd reactions, and after an emotional thanks to fans and family – “We are your crew and we wouldn’t be up here if it wasn’t for you” – they finished up with ‘History’.

In the end shit got pretty real with the boys from the mainline, but they kept a balance between fun and fierce. They’ve come a long way, but they proved their future’s bright.