Truck 2016 Friday pt 2

Later we catch Maiians’ excellent set, starting out like Godspeed!  You Black Emperor on Sleeping Bag and including a tune that sounds like “Papua New Guinea” arranged by Tom Tom Club, and Beach’s unconvincing set that sounds like Hail To The Thief played by Fields Of The Nephilim, which is rubbish, though they do get points for bringing huge reverb pedals to the Barn: drop them a line about it through coals@newcastle.com.  But, the night belongs to Jurassic 5, who are phenomenal on the main stage, and certainly don’t deserve billing beneath the bloated tedium of Catfish & The Bottlemen.  They might rap about how they take “four MCs and make them sound like one”, but the strength of J5 and all great hip hop crews is how each member has individual strength and character, throwing their style into a relaxed whole like Avengers Assemble For Netflix and Doritos.  The whole show, down to the lighting cues, is as tightly drilled and crowd-pleasing as The Moscow State Circus, but the group never loses the handmade, unfussy of classic hip hop.  Even the DJ cutting session, the B-boy equivalent of a stadium drum solo and wee break excuse, is tons of fun (there are two DJs, meaning that there are 6 members of Jurassic 5 tonight, which must have pleased that new-math Gorwelion engineer).  Earlier this summer Oxford saw sets from rap demigods Sugarhill Gang and Public Enemy.  J5 were – whisper it – better.