Beer Saturday - Pre-Loading, Getting on the Guest Lists, Hip Hop and a Few tasty Beers (Video of Gig Included)

Getting on the Guest List of my Favourite UK Rapper & Pre-loading Explained

I had an epic day/night last Friday, seeing an activist/anarchist rapper called Lowkey. A friend of mine who is involved in activism here in Liverpool text me saying she could get me on the Guest list to see my favourite UK rapper and blinding talent, Lowkey.

I hastily said yes to her to put me on the list, and I'd get back to her with two other names.

"Be quick, as they're going like hotcakes" was the text response.

Unfortunately, I only had a few hours and 2 potential free guest list spots so I got frantic texting all my friends saying "hey, does anyone want on the guest list for a HipHop gig tonight headlining Lowkey"... and the lazy shower of bastards that they are 😂 I got nothing back until 4 hours later when one of my friends responded saying she'd love to come along. I'd had a text 2 hours earlier saying all spots were gone now, so I had to disappoint my friend.

Going alone to a gig is well and truly stepping out of my comfort zone. I used to have severe anxiety and couldn't strike up a conversation with anyone unless they initiated it... but that's just life, sometimes it gives you lemons, I say make a nice salad dressing, and get on with it.

Since those times though, travelling/backpacking has forced me to confront these neuroses and learn how to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger.

But I'm getting ahead of myself... this is the Beer Community I hear you cry!

Where are the beers?

Well, I'll start off with the first subject in the title, Pre-loading. I'm not sure if it is a quintessentially British thing (let me know in the comments if anyone outside the UK does know about this hallowed ritual).

Pre-loading is when you find out you're going to an awesome gig, but then you hunt down the bar prices and realise you're looking at £7/pint of beer on tap. For all of those capital city dwellers laughing at me and saying "That is s a bargain, it's a tenner for a pint in London."

All I can say is we're blessed up here in Liverpool that the average cost of a pint of lager (my main drink of choice) is around £3.75 and real ales, especially cask ales, can be below the £3 mark. So knowing that I would be rinsed at the gig if I drank heavily I decided to pre-load (basically this means drinking 4-6 pints prior to going to the gig at local pubs that are cheap).

The sun was blazing that day so I decided to get on my bike and ride down to the waterfront to a pub called The Britannia Inn that looks out on the river, which sells a reasonably priced pint of Peroni, and they keep the glasses in the freezer, old school, keeping your beer frosty for longer.

What can I say about lager... some of it is good, some bad and some just in-between. I like Peroni, it has a mild crispness to it, less sharp than a decent pilsner which is also a favourite of mine but gets a bit much after the three-pint mark.

After two pints I decided to ride home for a shower (as there's a massive hill up to my apartment) and then ate a hasty dinner before heading out to my local pub, The Cambridge, for pre-loading part two.

At this point, I broke my rule and had a pint of cask ale, as I'd done my research on the venue and the only beer they had on tap was Birra Moretti at the venue 'The District', which I've always found to taste somewhere halfway between an ale and a lager, so I thought what the hell.

In brief, and for a bit of context I've suffered an 8-year chronic gut condition and real ale nearly always gives me terrible stomach problems for many days afterwards... but god damn if they aren't tasty.

I tried this Shropshire Gold pictured 🔼 and found it to be quite refreshing and not far from my usual choice of lager, although I could really taste the floral hoppy notes dancing on my tongue, which balanced out a nice crisp malty aftertaste.

You'll have to forgive me for getting a bit pretentious with the description. I used to work as a barman in a pub that was on the CAMRA tour itinerary. For anyone outside the UK, they are a slightly overzealous real ale-drinking society that can make or break a pub with a good or bad review. This was the first time I'd tried real ale in 8 months due to its usual effect on me and this stuff slipped down a treat. Two pints later, I decided not to push my luck and ordered a pint of Fosters.

😂🤣 I'm not going to start extolling the virtues of Fosters, it's pretty tasteless and inoffensive and definitely falls in the category I mentioned earlier, in lager terms, as somewhere right in the middle.

All I know is I had a decent buzz on now after 5 pints and I wasn't down by more than £20, so as the gig had been going one hour already I wandered down to 'up and coming' hipster heaven that is the Baltic triangle and the gig at The District.

Now as I mentioned before I still suffer (sometimes) from quite crippling self-consciousness. But as I walked into this place (maybe it was the swagger of being on the guest list) I felt absolutely fine. I leaned on the bar and sipped on a pint of the £7 Birra Moretti which was a tasty brew, but I'm not sure it was ‘£7 a pint tasty’ 🍺😉

All joking aside I really do like Birra Moretti, it is a very full-bodied flavourful lager, especially for an Italian lager. Anyway, my Pre-loading tactics had worked and I wasn't guzzling the beers down like I usually do.

There were some warm-up acts of performance poetry and I was actually full of beans that day because I found the organiser of the event and asked if it was an open mic, as I have loads of my poetry (check my collections page on PeakD if you want to read any I've published here) stored on my phone. She was very kind and said no, all the acts were timed to perfection so there weren't any open slots.

As I only smoke when I drink I used the age-old trick of joining the smoker's area, and I'd tactically not brought a lighter with me, which can be an unobtrusive way to spark up a conversation with whoever you get some fire from 😅 the first group of people I met were pretty much in a group and seemed caught up in their own conversations so I didn't butt in like the proverbial third wheel.

As the night drew on - and my bank account grew lighter - the Birra Moretti was just the ticket as it was cold and refreshing, and the gig was hot due to the mini-heat wave we've been having here in the UK.

I found myself talking to loads of people, & even had an impromptu poetry slam in the garden with a young poet whose girlfriend was buzzing from flow between us both as we upped our speed and rhythm in delivering our poems.

I performed 'Moral Mediocrity' performed @ 0.58 mins in this YouTube performance:

And I followed this up with a poem I wrote a while ago called 40% Off.

Both poems show my ambivalence toward capitalism in its current form, and anarchistic leanings. It was that type of atmosphere so they went down well.

I felt really fired up that night and read the poem 'Moral Mediocrity' better than in the performance I shared above in the heat of an impromptu poetic battle. Don’t underestimate the power of 🍻 😂

As I returned inside after this thoroughly pleasant encounter the geezer I'd been trading poems with said "come find us near the front of the stage when Lowkey comes on dude." This just goes to show if you don't get out of your comfort zone sometimes, everything will remain the same.

And now for the music...

This video contains short clips of the gig, as I was quite drunk, but also didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ just holding his phone up for hours, I wanted to experience the gig without the constant meta-mania of having to record everything.

Having said all that, I got a few clips of the main support act Dorcas - a multi-discipline creative talent from Liverpool, specializing in drama, poetry and singing.

I also got two short clips of the headline act, Lowkey who I’ve wanted to see for years. Check out the Alphabet Aerobics (rapping from A - Z) he freestyles in the final clip.

I only managed to capture from A – E as again, I didn't want to lose the immediacy of the moment by focusing on my phone too much 😂 but believe me the rest was impressive.

As a final act of creativity, which is what that gig was all about for me, it was palpable in the air as the place was packed to the gills with musicians, poets, rappers and artists.

Here is a little poem I wrote inspired by the gig, and the night as a whole.

I stepped out of my comfort
zone going to a gig on my own.
Anxiety can't beat me,
after an impromptu poetry slam
in the garden, I felt free
like I’d found my tribe
and it was okay to just be me
spitting rhymes while walking the walk
I also felt fierce after my girlfriend
gave me an amazing pep talk
maybe I had one too many
Birra moretti but what the fuck
you only live once anyway.

Poetry is © @raj808 (YouTube: MainlyPoetry)

I hope you enjoyed the snippet of the '50 years of hip hop with Lowkey and Friends' concert hosted/organized by Writing on the Wall.

Thanks for reading/watching🙂🍻

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