Ghostface Killah at The Sugar Club, Thursday 10th of July 2014

Better late than never, as they say. It’s interesting how, in this era of modern arenas operating to strict schedules and closing times, the tardy performer has become the exception rather than the rule, which makes it noteworthy that Ghostface Killah left his fans in the Sugar Club waiting three hours for his arrival.

The crowd were growing restless with a few cat calls starting to emanate when The Technician, Ghost’s beat-maker, emerged to warm us up. And warm us up he did, as he scratched his way through the history of hip-hop, from Slick Rick to Luniz to House of Pain. The crowd sedated, Ghostface made his way on to a sweltering Sugar club stage.

The gig was part of the Beck’s Rhythm Series, and was sold as an “up close and personal evening with Ghostface Killah”, which was slated to comprise a Q&A session followed by a performance, the first part of which was presumably binned due to the late start. Most fans won’t have been too put out by this, but given the man’s legacy with the Wu-Tang Clan it could have been an interesting part of the evening.

Almost immediately Ghostface brought on his touring partner Sheek Louch and for the rest of the night they interchanged and collaborated on tracks from each of their back catalogues, both from the Wu and the Lox. The pair will be further collaborating on a forthcoming album. Also joining the party on stage was Sun God, none other than Ghostface’s son. He took a couple of tracks on his own, but on this performance it looks like he has some way to go before he will be emulating his father’s career.

Fans of Ghost’s more recent output would have been disappointed as this was very much a delve into the archives. One of the highlights of the night was when two volunteers from the crowd came on stage to take on Method Man and ODB’s verses on Protect Ya Neck – and owned it. An hour and a half later they were gone again. A 50% return on the waiting time. Some would consider that a bad investment, but in Ireland bad investments are part of the national psyche.