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Pip Skid & DJ Co-op

If the young dudes (The Lytics) are all easy beats and positivity, the older dudes (Pip Skid, DJ Co-op) are fucking beer-guzzling party animals.


Pip made it clear very early on that all he and Co-op wanted to do was "get drunk and dance." And dance they did. When Wilson Pickett’s Land of 1000 Dances was cued, Co-op stripped off his shirt and got loose with Pip thrashing like a wild animal alongside.


These in-between-track dancing wig-outs would carry on throughout the night with the crowd dancing harder and getting crazier as the clock ticked by, particularly memorable were the mass sing-alongs to Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain and Mr. Big’s To Be with You.


With DJ Co-op deftly cutting beats and Nestor Wynrush lending his Trinirap-style, Pip Skid got beastly on the mic, growling rhymes with the force of a Viking metalhead. It’s been widely stated that the Brandon-bred rapper is grossly underrated and when you see the guy get nuts live, you’ll quickly understand why. He is a bonafide performer – irreverent, quick-witted and thrilling to see go off.


Getting in tracks from Skid Row, such as Tens of Dollars, I Can’t Sleep and others, the night closed with What Have We Done, along with Co-op giving Pip a nice cold shower of beer over the head. Never a dull moment!


The "late night secret show" got going at 1:00 a.m. with the West Broadway Hip Hop Orchestra (consisting of five rappers who look like they’re barely out of junior high and three instrumentalists that play drums, keys, and guitar) warming up the near full-house of buzzed partiers to funk-laced riffs atop silly, school-boy raps. A good show by the collective, but sound issues and what seemed like 30 minutes straight of ear-splitting feedback made the set tough to sit through at times.