Live Review: Ho99o9 - Electric Ballroom, London 13/12/2017
Hip-Hop/Punk crossover Ho99o9 have quickly grown in popularity, after playing a sold out headline show back in June, they were back to break London once again and this time no one was coming out alive!!!
A slightly smaller crowd were present for tonight’s opener than we would have expected, the undisputed Puppy took to the stage not long after the doors opened, hitting the audience with crushing riffs and Jack’s wide vocal ability! The mood changed so rapidly from swaying with lighters out to the whole front row headbanging to their heart delight. Puppy put on a stellar performance, every song sounding better and better, our highlight would have to be their closer ‘Entombed’ which always gets the crowd moving.
Next up on tonight’s bill were Kate Mo$$, a band that can’t really be described, its much better to go see them live because it is a crazy trip of violent rap, hard hitting drums and a whole bunch of other freaky stuff that you wouldn’t believe.
Walking onto stage in a plastic bag/ gimp mask accompanied by a hellish looking bride, the couple began a strange ceremony for the next few songs. The main man known only as Gnarles Manson proceed to fling himself around the stage with said bride lusting after him at every turn; this was all while tour manager and unofficial member of the band Purple Tony sat at the back of the stage filming the whole thing like a demented Steven Speilberg. The rest of the show proceeded in a similar fashion, the bride stripped off to barely anything at all, Gnarles recited how Tony and himself had been detained as soon as they landed in London yesterday for 24 hours and the crowd proceeded to love/hate every second of it.
The room went dark and a low rumbling of distorted bass filled the now packed Electric Ballroom, it was then that The OGM and Eaddy took to the stage to show off the true power of Ho99o9!!! They did not start lightly with ‘Street Power’, ‘No Witness’ and ‘POW’ starting the mayhem off, Eaddy using every part of the stage to his advantage; be that on top of the speakers or even stood aloft the drum kit at the back of the stage. The remainder of the evening did not cease in energy with songs like ‘The Dope Dealerz’ showing off the strong hip-hop influences every member of the band have; where as ‘Piss Bottle’ & ‘Twisted Metal’ veered more towards angsty punk vibes. There were multiple points where Eaddy would jump head first into the waiting crowd and even proceeded to scream from the middle of a wall of death as it descended on him. The man has no fears! Tonight’s headline set concluded with the guitar heavy ‘Knuckle Up’, absolute fan favourite ‘Bone Collector’ and there was even time for a quick cover of Bad Brains’ Attitude’ to close the evenings proceedings!!
Ho99o9 are rapidly becoming the most spoken about band in both the hip-hop and punk scenes, every record they release seems to be better than the last; tonight performance was one of their best in the UK and we are sure it won’t be long before they are back to top even that!!!
Review and Photography by Joe Dick