An hour out for poetry and beats
My Greenbelt has been slightly different to most. In amongst arranging press conferences and planning interviews with what feels like every local BBC radio station in the UK, time to stop and watch is understandably limited, as is time to write reviews of what I've seen or conjure the words to describe it...
Last night I took an hour off to see Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip's performance poetry mixed with electro beats. It was their first Greenbelt experience and they clearly didn't know what to expect, hence the early between-song banter from Pip: 'I'm trying really hard not to swear!'. But they soon relaxed, throwing out jokes about the 'uplifting' (or otherwise) nature of some of the tracks from Angles, last year's acclaimed debut album. They played most of the hits early on, starting with The Beat That My Heart Skipped and rattling through Look For The Woman and their biggest track, Thou Shalt Always Kill, complete with the radio-friendly version of the lyrics.
By the time the duo reached the end of the set the crowd had grown and was sufficiently warmed up for headliners Royksopp, but there was still time for Letter From God To Man; Pip's take on theology set to Sac's sample of Radiohead's 'Planet Telex'. For me it was one of those Greenbelt moments that I've had a few of over the years; Pip's presence seemed to grow further as the crowd cheered along with the prose, and as the song reached its climax it felt like Sac vs Pip belonged as much on Greenbelt's worship programme as the Mainstage music line-up.
