Buraka Som Sistema Live @ The Scala, 15/02/09

Buraka have had a phenomenal rise to power over the last 2 years, wielding a natural ability to set floors ablaze with a mixture of bottom heavy beats, booming sub bass and enough percussion instruments to shake a wegue at; it’s all wrapped around a street-wise, brash and full-on bulldozer sound. The percussion element comes from Kuduro, a type of West-Angolan, improvisatory music. Portugal’s Buraka, with their African connections, take Kuduro and re-adjust it’s parameters with split rave and urban/grime influences - ghetto-tech for a 21st Century European audience.

So it’s no wonder that the Scala - more like a maze than a venue with its endless stairwells, balconies and post-box red walls - was possibly the fullest I’ve ever seen it (kind of relative when you think that the band sold thousands of copies of their debut single without a deal and a youtube video). Bursting at the seams, with punters literally falling over themselves, it became slightly uncomfortable to say the least, especially when they were half an hour late on stage. However, we were treated to the proto-dubstep, two-step flavours of the warm up DJ, who held the crowd nicely until the stars of the show finally appeared.( cAN ANYONE ACTUALLY TELL ME WHO THIS GUYS FUCKING NAME IS PLEASE? I CAN FIND IT ANYWHERE - NO ONE KNOWS!)

Half an hour of waiting in a stretched-capacity room of sweat and elbows only seemed to make the crowd jump about more furiously, as the warped bassline and live kick-drum of ‘Luanda-Lisboa’ smashed into action, the crowd a sea of jumping, writhing bodies. In fact, for the first couple of songs, the ailing venue had to re-adjust their sound config’s, with the sound of two Laptops and a live drummer melding into one, leaving it all sounding slightly flat, the usual emphasis on Buraka’s killer drops and wicked tones missing. Fortunately this was just a temporary measure, as they literally ploughed through a jaw dropping set list of tunes such as ‘Wegue-Wegue’ and new banger ‘Sound Of Kuduro’. The two MC’s gleefully played the crowd, feeding them from the palm of their hands. And all the while I was thinking “do her dance moves get any crazier?” while watching the dancer flex and grind, her limbs bending to breaking point whilst throwing the most insane, booty shaking shapes.

Although the place was so full of life and energy that the trio had to shout to be heard over the crowd, and the speakers distorted under the sheer bass frequencies, it remained a full-steam party throughout. Forever teasing and coaxing the crowd, DJ Riot cheekily cut in samples from classic tunes such as ‘Show me what You Got’, Benni Benassi’s ‘Satisfaction’, Snaps ‘Rhythm is A Dancer’ and lots of vocal-house-meets-ghetto-tech polyrhythm’s in between. It gave the crowd a real surprise that went down as smooth as a pint of Caffrey’s, with added live drums and vocoder vocals over the top for extra heavyweight clout. When the former’s B-more ghetto-house style seamlessly blended into smash-debut single ‘Yah’, it was game over; the place literally crumbled under the crowd, exploding as the wooden block smacks of the opening bars burst to life; everyone in sight, from the top balcony through to the front of stage was jumping in unison. A great night for Portugal, judging from all the flags proudly thrust onto stage during the encore.