Reviewed on Thursday March 5
It’s a good time to catch Aussie hip hop heavyweights Thundamentals. The Blue Mountaineers are currently riding a massive high, coming off a meaty 2014 that included key spots at Falls Festival, Groovin The Moo and on the Hilltop Hoods tour, and even after that Virgin incident, their equipment still appears to be in prime condition.
Coming off all this, their own national tour, which kicked off at Manning Bar, is a natural progression for their now well-versed live set. The tour is a kind of victory lap for their album So We Can Remember (which they dropped almost exactly one year ago), translating the hit record into an explosive show.
The thing about hip hop in general – and this is what Thundamentals do so damn well – is that it invites you into a conversation. There’s a theatrical element that other forms of music can’t really compete with. Tuka and Jeswon have such a slapstick, affable presence that regardless of how you feel about their music, it’s impossible not to enjoy their antics. Whether they were heavy metal head-banging, conducting group participation in imaginary spliff-rolling, or tugging at various at political strings, the pair opened the doors far and wide into ‘Quit Your Job’, ‘Got Love’ and ‘Paint The Town Red’.
Combine this with hilarious and well-cut video footage (a recurrent image of Tuka looking like a blood-splattered Christian Bale in American Psycho is pretty eerie) and the high level of musicianship from the entire crew – including a live trumpeter – and Thundamentals came dangerously close to having a flawless set.
It’s when they ventured away from this formula that the show sagged a notch or two. Versatility costs energy, and the heavier, trap-based tracks like ‘Elephant In The Room’ and ‘The Groundhog Song’ slightly weighed the project down. However, strictly promising no encore, the duo wrapped things up on a bright note with a jubilant ‘Something I Said’ and the offer of free hugs at the merch desk. You can’t get much more intimate than that.
