Jesus, Flava Flav looks old. Not as old as he looks on those terrible reality TV shows, nor as ridiculous, but up close there’s no getting away from the fact that he’s almost 50. Still, Flav remains the x factor in the Public Enemy equation, the colourful clown that adds light to the shade of Chuck D’s polemic.
Flav doesn’t even come onstage until the third song, with the sight of his oversized clock enough to make Vicar Street erupt. At this stage it feels like they respect Chuck D, but it’s Flava they really love.
The gig is no mere nostalgia trip though. ‘Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos’, ‘He Got Game’ and ‘Don’t Believe the Hype’ explode out of the speakers, still bristling with the verve and attitude that made Public Enemy one of the pioneers of conscious hip-hop. There’s a predictable and slightly quaint “Fuck George Bush, Fuck Tony Blair” singalong, but other than that the first half of the set is lean and most definitely mean.
Then we reach the second half, and Flava Flav’s mini solo set. His debut solo release will be out soon, and initially the crowd are keen to lavish some attention on the man quite rightly labelled the "greatest hype man in hip hop" by Chuck earlier in the performance. But the longer Flav stays onstage on his own, playing one ordinary song after another, the more the atmosphere eeks out of the venue.
And then he gets to talking about his reality TV career, and is met with more boos than cheers. It seems that as part of Public Enemy, Flav can do no wrong. On his own, he casts a pretty vulnerable and sad figure, hawking music that nobody seems to want to hear.
Chuck and the band return, and the set picks up some momentum again. Flav is hype man once more, dancing at the side of the stage and clasping hands with as many of the audience as he can. PE end on a funkified ‘Fight the Power' that proves that these boys really had something rare. Chuck hasn’t lost it, but Flav might have some work on his hands to get it back.