LIVE REVIEW: Professor Green & Rizzle Kicks @ Liverpool Guild Of Students

Professor Green (real name Stephen Manderson) has worked his way up the music scene since debuting his music in 2006 on Mike Skinners music label The Beats. It’s well known that he has had a turbulent time in the last few years; his father committed suicide in 2008, and in 2009 he was attacked and stabbed in the neck, on his tattoo which reads ‘Lucky’.  Tonight he should feel lucky. The debut night of his ‘At Your Inconvenince’ Tour in Liverpool is sold out and the queue managed to snake down Mount Pleasant as far as the eye could see.
The large size of the queue and the slow speed at which people were let into the venue lead to Rizzle Kicks playing most of their set to a half empty room, not that they let that affect their performance. They bounced their way through new single ‘When I Was A Youngster’, while the audience settled in. Their performance was reminiscent of a young, modern Madness.  They were eager to please and talked to the audience, encouraging chants and screams. A ska cover of the White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army’ added some gusto to the set, not that it needed it. Energy was high throughout their performance, and they ended with their hit debut single ‘Down With The Trumpets’. It was a fun and bouncy set. I don’t know if they have the staying power to last long, but at least they are having a lot of fun doing it.

Next on stage was DJ IQ, and hype man Felix Billion. They announced that it was Professor Green’s birthday, so a round of Happy Birthday was sang.

Professor Green’s band took to the stage, consisting of two guys on laptops, a drummer, guitarist and bassist and two backing vocalists, who took their places either side of the stage. The lights went low and Professor Green burst onto the stage to sing album title track ‘At Your Inconvenience’. The first part of the set compromised of five songs from his newly released album. There was a very rock ‘n’ roll vibe, which worked very well in contrast to his spitting vocals. The audience seemed to lose interest towards the end of this, but energy picked up when he announced he would perform some ‘older’ songs. The band bounced through hits ‘Need You Tonight’ and ‘Be Good To Green’, with his male and female vocalists filling in for Ed Drewet and Lily Allen respectively. 

The set continued with new material, which seemed to be quite a strong contrast compared to his old msongs. The vocal remained strong throughout from Professor Green and you could feel the raw emotion from him on songs such as ‘Forever Falling’.

Tempo picked up with guest appearances during ‘How Many Moons’ and remained high with ‘Monster’ which completed the set.

A humble Professor Green returned to the stage for an encore of ‘Jungle’ and ‘Avalon’, providing a perfect example of his range of musical talent, and hit single ‘Read All About It’ was met by deafening audience interaction.

Professor Green was a success. His music has evolved into a much more grown up sound, but his fans are loyal, and he’s not going anywhere just yet.