Bristol Academy

Twenty years after the release of the ground breaking and enormously influential "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back", Public Enemy return to the UK to perform the whole LP, live, as part of the Don't Look Back series of concerts.

There's an element of symmetry to this tour - Public Enemy, along with Run DMC lead the first wave of truly international hip hop - live excerpts of PE's "London Invasion" gig in 1987 are peppered throughout "It Takes a Nation of Millions..."

This time around, Bristol is chosen as the venue to kick proceedings off and we arrive to meet the Bomb Squad, (Hank & Keith Shocklee, who produced PE), warming the crowd up with bass heavy jams and an MC promising the imminent arrival of the real deal of hip-hop.

Public Enemy take to the stage using the all too familiar siren led intro of "Countdown to Armageddon" - and before we know it, Chuck D and Flavor Flav have the crowd instantly on the ropes as it segues into "Bring the Noise".

In between tracks Chuck & Flav work the crowd and talk the talk. They repeatedly reinforce their message that race means nothing and the powers that be are the real enemy.  (This can come as a surprise if you believe the hype, especially if you lump them in with your stereotypical gangster rap crowd.)

Chuck raised applause when he gave props to UK hip-hop pioneers such as Overlord X, Silver Bullet and Caveman; and again as he paid tribute to Flavor ending with "The world will never see another like him - lets hear it for the oldest teenager in the world....".

As we make our way through the LP it's clear that dynamic between Chuck & Flavor hasn't lost its edge or urgency, the social criticism in PE's lyrics remain as relevant today as they did 20 years ago.

Back to the music - even when you consider that there are a few tracks on this lp that are being performed live for the first time, the band are tight.

Flavor makes his way through his prankster anthem, "Cold Lampin with Flavor" like he wrote it last week, let alone two decades ago. "Mind Terrorist" is revelation live and there is a real sense of approaching thunder as we know that tracks like "Rebel without a Pause" and "Party for your right to fight" are on the way.

Things lose a bit of cohesion with a slightly muddy "Show em whatcha got" and an even more chaotic "She watch channel Zero" - but thankfully a razor sharp "Night of the living Bassheads" and relentless "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" get the crowd whipped up and the previously mentioned "Rebel..." and "Party..." lift the roof off a packed Academy.

Not content with delivering THE hip hop lp to us, PE then take us on a whistle stop mega mix of their back catalogue.  "Welcome to the Terrordome" mashes into "Shut em down", real oldies like "Too much Posse" merge into "Can't Truss it" and Chuck links the breaks with some impressive lyrical boxing.

Finishing with a blistering "Fight the Power", PE leave us with a final message of thanks and love - with that, DJ Lord (ably standing in for the retired Terminator X) drops Bob Marley's "One Love" - Public Enemy - are still - in full effect.

words by Andy Brockway