Music / Reviews
Review: Sage Francis, The Fleece
After four years since his last album, Sage Francis unleashed tracks from his latest record, Copper Goner’, along with poems and freestyles in one of his trademark passion filled performances at The Fleece.
The momentum of the gig embed and flowed like Francis’ meter on his spoken word movements, which were peppered through out the gig. His ability to control the tempo his punctuation and syntax emphasised that he is a spoken word poet first and a rapper second.
As he performed in front of the near sell out crow, shrouded in a make shift cape comprised of a flag dawning his label’s logo, Strange Famous Records, he emoted raw lines about the harsh realities of the world, but with words that made even the heaviest topic roll off the tongue.
is needed now More than ever
A literate lyricist, Francis covered gender inequality, freedom of speech and even took time to poke fun at himself by acknowledging his self importance with the line, ‘A girl texted me once, ‘You’re full of yourself’, / I never wrote back, but this song was my reply’
As Sage Francis sampled deeper and deeper into his back catalogue, reaching as far back as the opening track of his 2002 debut record, Personal Journals, he commanded the stage as swirling animations, movie clips, illustrations and personal photographs were projected both on to, and behind, him.
During the last few tracks, the crowd was treated as surprise guest, Scroobius Pip, joined Sage Francis on stage and unleashing the final torrent of slam poetry and hip-hop.
As Francis closed out the show, he bellowed for a group hug from the audience, hopped off stage and began to thank everyone he could for listening to all he had to say.
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