Freddie Cruger AKA Red Astaire, Friday 15 February @ Sandwiches, WGTN.
Mash-ups - the most currently over used phrase of the music industry, yet the cliche term in this instance rings true. Freddie Cruger is Mash-ups. There is no other way to describe the man!
It was a rainy chilly night but Wellington pulled together a dedicated crowd and bustled into sandwiches. When it comes to International hip-hop artists Wellington seems to pale in comparison to our off shore neighbour (Australia) we just don't manage to pull the big International hip-hop names. So it was with pleasure that I lined up outside Sandwiches for Freddie Cruger gagging to see something other than what was on offer in our current dub saturated local market.
It was already after midnight and half an hour after arrival Freddie Cruger jumped on the decks, the crowd already heavily on the dance floor eager to sample the offerings. Amongst the smoke from the trigger-happy smoke machinist the crowd were shaking their shit on the dance floor. From start to finish the crowd danced in a grinding frenzy of confusion and satisfaction as Freddie Cruger pulled out the old school b-boy classics amongst his other mayhem - his bootleg 'something good' being an obvious crowd pleaser - such a good track!
The crowd was a scattered demographic of middle aged women through to crisp looking eighteen year olds rocking it in their new straight brimmed caps (is there a name for these?) and their collector sneakers - everyone was up for it.
Cruger lead the crowd through highs and lows of smouldering female soul, dance hall reggae, old school funk, hot Latino rhythms and some dirty sounding ghetto beats. For most of his set Cruger had the crowd eating out of his big Swedish mitt. The crowd lurking back only when a few tracks got too 'alternative', the b-boys and girls of Wellington not being able to follow the spasmodic electronic beat, the game few who tried to battle this unknown enemy lost providing much entertain for the rest of us.
The only damper on the evening
was on home turf with a local host (MC Slave) sadly not quite being
able to sell it to the crowd. Oh and an over kill on the Latino tracks
well, for my personal salsa quota anyhow. Groans aside it was worth
seeing and as a friend of mine eloquently put it (little does he know
I shall steal his words for my closing sentence) -
'Freddie Cruger aka Red Astaire...is one of the most musically poetic beat smiths to emerge from Europe over the last few years'. And I couldn't agree more.
Alicia-Rose Caldwell
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