Hacktivist – Southampton Joiners – 7/12/2014 | Live Review

Source: Martyna Wisniewska

On the tail end of their twenty-two date ‘Download Freezes Over’ tour, main support for this tour comes from The One Hundred, head and shoulders above the local supports their set was beautifully well strung together hip hop vibes, dirty gruff vocals, programming immaculately well written and perfectly deployed. Lead by Jacob Field, who’s flow was the slickest of the night, the four piece cranked it up a gear; their set- comprised entirely of songs from their Subculture EP- was stuffed with huge vocal hooks like “Don’t blame us ‘cause you fucked up” from ‘Tale of Two Cities’. Hacktivist couldn’t have found better support.

Source: Martyna Wisniewska

The headliners had their crowd going before they even took to the stage, dropping the lights and blaring grime tunes into the darkened room. To start with, that was cool, but it took Hacktivist just a little to long to get onto the stage, and the impact was lost slightly. Once they got into it, they were truly off the chain; vocalists Ben Marvin and J Hurley have ridiculous onstage chemistry, working seamlessly together to keep the crowd going. Their set cut old and new material together, naturally finding space for their iconic ‘Niggas In Paris’ cover. During ‘Deceive & Defy’, their latest single, The One Hundred’s Jacob was crowd surfed to the stage to cover vocals normally performed by Charlie Holmes, and he absolutely nailed it.

Ending on ‘Elevate’, and then returning for an encore of ‘I’ve got five on it’, Hacktivist were a dose of pure adrenaline into the heart of Joiners.

Words by: Callum Cornwell
Photos by: Martyna Wisniewska