David Rodigan, The Skints, et Gentleman's Dub Club

Music is an art form that has the ability to evoke a number of different emotions on the same album. Whether it makes you feel sad, brave, joyous, hopeful or reflective, something is conjured up when you press play. Amongst these emotions, ultimately music should make us feel good, happy and care free.

The Skints are a band who certainly evoke those feel good vibes and in a country that can often come across as very miserable, these Londoners help bring that ever so needed ray of sunshine to the often dreary feeling of London Town.

Combining reggae, ska, dub, hip hop and punk music to create their sound, The Skints have bought back the happy factor and it was a pleasure to see them at The Hackney Weekender.

From covers to their own material including ‘Rise Up’ and ‘Cost of Living’, they really know to conduct and control the crowd. With the audience swaying side to side and hands raised, The Skints introduced the BBC Hackney Weekender in perfect fashion and tenacity, but what’s a reggae group without a tribute to some reggae heavyweights? The Skints covered tracks by Dawn Penn and the infamous Bob Marley, and with them being back again in the UK towards the end of the year, don’t let the cold weather stop you from getting a ticket, there’s always sunshine with The Skints.

Second time of seeing the gentlemens dub club and another 3 more times this year,very happy face... always put on a great show, great atmosphere, keep up the good work guys , look forward to seeing them again and again

Had a great time. He was lively, energetic and engaging. I felt he could have performed for longer though (he performed for roughly 1hr and 40 mins). The supporting acts except one were rather mediocre.

I couldn’t think of a more fitting name for the Guyanese Dub producer Mad Professor because the things he does are essentially a wild science experiment gone right. Widely respected for bringing dub music into the digital age and carrying on the pioneering work of masters like Lee Scratch Perry, Mad Professor is a skilled and gifted man.

His shows aren’t just an average DJ set. Mad professor conducts his experiments publicly and on stage you can see him manipulating effects and chopping up tunes to give them his unique dub finish. An in demand remixer, he will often take existing tracks and completely re-imagine them before the audiences very eyes, turning everything from pop to soul into spaced out dub masterpieces. Crowds are sucked into the world the Mad Professor creates, opening their minds to the warped vibes and dancing the night away. Whether you see Mad Professor for the easy going dub vibes or to see a master perform his craft live you will leave riding on a cloud of bliss and will definitely wanting to visit the Mad Professor’s lab again soon.

As one of my favourite DJs, I’ve seen Roni Size perform multiple times, and can’t encourage anyone enough to see him perform. As well as being an incredibly talented performer, he was also the founder of Reprazent, the drum and bass group who won a Mercury Prize for their album. In the performance, it was awesome that he had a rapper singing over his music, and encouraging the audience to dance and get involved. Sometimes in DJ sets it’s easy to forget that someone’s performing their music, but the support vocalist assisted in making the performance electric. He would step back and signal for everyone to watch Size in the moments where he was mixing like crazy, raising the beat, and scratching the decks. He played mainly form Take Kontrol, the newest album, which was epic as it was one of the first times it had been performed since its release. He also played Kops & Robbers, whick of course everyone at the concert knew inside out and so everyone was on the dance floor with their arms in the air.
The atmosphere was awesome, and he even played a couple of tracks form a Reprazent album that’s currently unreleased. Hearing new music before it goes mainstream is wonderful, and the fact that Size shared that with us was really special.