Reviewed onWednesday February 24 (photo by Ashley Mar)
It’s a common adage that any promoter who aims to bring Wu-Tang Clan out for a tour must have a death wish. The last time they came to Sydney, in 2011, they were brought out by a dreadlocked extreme sports promoter who insisted on hosting the event and having a huge party side of stage. The party eventually spilled onto the stage itself while the Clan got exceedingly drunk and left, one by one, presumably with any number of girls, leaving Raekwon freestyling over beats for ten minutes before he followed suit. It was an epic train wreck of a show but worth every penny.
This time was a much more sober affair, but no less messy. Two of the announced members, Inspectah Deck and U-God, were nowhere to be found due to visa issues, leaving a lean group of five onstage. But we got the best of them, with Raekwon, RZA, GZA, Ghostface and Masta Killa turning up. Opening up a set that featured a heavy amount of their debut, it was a sonic mess, with four of them hyping for any one MC at a time, creating a sloppy show that was one of the loudest heard by these ears at the Hordern.
There were some more odd moments, with RZA’s random a cappella rhymes about pregnancy and childbirth and a stage mosh to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ that seemed to come out of nowhere, but within all of that was the same hungry, energetic Wu we know and love. Even in front of 5,000, it had the energy of a steamy club, with the up-for-it crowd bouncing off the rafters.
As much as Wu-Tang’s legacy has been tainted in recent times, it was never really sparkling in the first place. A ramshackle group of personalities put on a ramshackle show and somehow made it last 20-odd years, but they’re still having a party doing it.
