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| Music Review - Rodigan At The FLOG |
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Vibranite gets the FLOG thumping at last
A few weeks ago I bemoaned the inability of Italian reggae star Alborosie to put on a good show at the FLOG. By all accounts, he had brought down the house at all his other Italian gigs, so maybe the problem was the venue, I found myself wondering. If one person could set me straight on this issue it was David Rodigan, veteran reggae selecta and all round showman: when he threw on Kingston Town by Alborosie a few minutes into his set, the place went crazy. My faith in the ability of the FLOG and the Florentine reggae massive to put on a great dancehall was restored.David Rodigan has achieved a level of credibilty and kudos within reggae that is quite staggering. People are always taken aback when they are told that they are going to see the greatest and most famous reggae dj in the world only to discover that he is a bald, middle aged white man from England. You suddenly feel great empathy with Luke Skywalker's feeling when he discovered that the great Master Yoda was a small green monster. Invariably, however, those very same people are looking on with awe after five minutes as the see Rodigan jump on top of the speakers, mimick the baseline of the latest and toughest dancehall joints, and sing along to his favourite lines. He controls the crowd, mesmerised, for every minute of his long sets - I once saw him dj for about seven hours on the beach in Southern Italy, and people were still willing to dance to the jungle beats to threw on at 7am, even though their bodies were begging them to stop. The FLOG, with its original architecture, boasts a huge octagonal space in front of the stage, which on nights like this one, means the whole venue becomes a gigantic dancefloor. The crowd was already rocking after a, frankly, average performance by veteran Italian reggae group Working Vibes, with their mix of roots and culture reggae and pseudo-latin rhythms. By the time Rodgian started spinning his personalised dubplate reworkings of dancehall smashes of recent months and years, the FLOG was ready to explode and it just about did. Rodigan is an expert showman, a perfect selecta for a dancehall, where the rapport between the man with the records and the crowd is so often said to be key to the atmosphere, but which is so often reduced to too much talking by the dj and a staccato and uncomfortable combination of records. Rodigan, on the other hand, talks relatively little, but enough to show of his Italian vocabularly, and combines records perfectly, knowing when to respond to the crowd's excitement with a pull up and when to throw on the next joint. He also makes sure he wins the favour of his audience by throwing in local heroes, showing the depth of his repertoire, with SuSoundSystem, Italian reggae collective from Salento cropping up a couple of times in the set. It is shows like this that confirm both Rodigan's status as the World Dancehall King and the the FLOG's reputation as the best venue in Florence. |
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