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Scratch Club presents DJ Q Bert (13/09/08)

DJ Q Bert is widely regarded as the best DJ in the world, with 4 world DMC championships, an entry to the Technics DJ hall of fame and his work with Vestax to develop his own turntable; it’s easy to see why.

Considering these credentials it was an absolute blessing for the Scratch Club guys to bring him to the Rainbow Warehouse for one of two UK dates this year. With the other appearance being in the mighty Fabric in London, this night was always set to be huge.

From the word go it was obvious that the Birmingham Hip-Hop heads were out in force for this night, all sporting a little cheeky grin. With the line-up of support looking magical, these smiles could only continue to creep up their faces.

The venue was filling up nicely with Scratch Club residents holding the fort in The Beach and The Warehouse. Three times UK DMC Champion DJ Switch took to the stage, his consistently energetic and amazing turntable wizardry, really took the night up a level. The ever charismatic flow of Redbeard maintained the vibe, whilst the stunning stage presence and unison of energy from the Playaz Cliq boys had every head nodding in the place, with the perfect set to get the crowd hyped for DJ Q-Bert. The “shamanic beatbox explorer” MC Xander impressed the crowds with his massively dynamic, mind blowing beat box skills.

Now it was time for the man himself, DJ Q-Bert, and it really doesn’t matter how much footage you see of this guy, when he is there in front of you it’s a whole new level. Props are due to MC Kingpin who did an absolutely fantastic job of keeping the crowd hanging off the rafters, whilst Q-Bert gave us a lesson on all things turntable. He cut, juggled, drummed and crabbed his way through an amazing array of records, whilst the structure of the set was constantly picking up pace. This guy performs skills of the highest caliber with inch perfect precision, whilst smiling for a camera, ridiculous. Big up to Q-Bert for an extremely special set.

DJ Q Bert was followed by the amazing Mc Mash Clan who really boosted the tempo with an upfront and meticulous blend of d’n'b, breaks, dubstep, techno, hardcore, electro, gabba, jungle, hip hop, reggae, breakcore and psytrance.

Props are also due to everyone involved in making this night happen and a massive shout to Bass6 for doing a wonderful job of hosting the night. Everyone in the perfect Hip-Hop venue felt the full force of the Birmingham Hip-Hop scene, and anyone who had lost faith in the scene had their confidence more than fully restored. This night has set the bar very high for things to come. Watch out Birmingham!

Words: Josh Thomas
Photography: Tom Horton

You can see the rest of Tom’s photos from this night over here: Photos of Dj Qbert, Rainbow Warehouse

Scratch Club present Dj Qbert, 13th September, Rainbow Warehouse

DJ Qbert is a legend amongst the scratch fraternity, and hardly suprising since he is a 4x world DMC champion. He is a member of the DJ hall of fame and an ex-member of the invisibl skratch picklz, alongside Mixmaster Mike of the Beastie Boys.

The last time we saw Dj Qbert in Birmingham was back in 2005 at the Medicine Bar (we have the pics to prove it, see below!), so its about time we saw a return and this time to the all new Rainbow Warehouse.

Dj Qbert is only making two UK appearances this year, with the other being at the mighty Fabric in London, so Birmingham should be feeling mighty proud and lucky to be playing host.

You can go view the event here on woib and buy tickets

Support acts on the night include:

Automaton (satamile records)
Dj Switch (3x UK DMC Champion - see here for my review and photos)
mc xander (live shamanic beatbox explorer)
the mc mash clan (braindrop, london)

This really is going to be a fantastic night of world class scratching ad general turntable madness (did I mention Qbert uses his own unique design of turntable?) - and with these sort of world class perfomances few and far bwteen, we suggest you bag yourself a ticket quick, as we reckon this ones gonna be kicking off with people hanging from the rafters.

Tom Horton