From my experience of queuing up for a gig or a concert, I have never seen the tail end of one go around three separate buildings. Aitch brought his charm to the O2 Academy in Sheffield.
I was confused when I first entered due to the almost immediate start of the support act, only after 10 minutes of doors being open to the public. DJ Bankz playing the stereotypical night out tunes you’d typically see in Code or Tank, it wasn’t surprising when those clubs were both mentioned by both DJ Bankz and Aitch later on in the night. I’m not the biggest believer of having a DJ set as a support, especially when they’re on for two hours. I would’ve liked to have seen an upcoming rapper, even though it’s not entirely to my taste.
The set dragged on and I was honestly ready to go home after what seemed to be hours upon hours of unoriginal music.
At 9:02, Aitch finally came on. Opening with Taste (Make It Shake), What’s Next and Bring It Back. It made me feel better about attending the gig, the DJ support act dampened my spirits but Aitch didn’t really disappoint. It was an eventful night of rapping, quick quips from Harrison himself, and lots of phones being held up constantly.
I had friends at the concert which allowed me to almost watch the entirety of Aitch’s set all over again on Snapchat. The sound was good, Aitch was an excellent performer but the atmosphere was lacking. It was either a phone in the air filming the gig, or a 10 year old buying a packet of crisps from the bar, which made me wonder how diverse is Aitch’s audience age range was! It was all quite humorous.
A few short songs later, Aitch finally performs the one of the only songs I’ve properly listened to, ‘1989’, of course it was the song that had a Stone Roses sample that I knew, but as mentioned before, Aitch was an incredibly off genre artist for me to see, as much as I dislike The Stone Roses, it is the genre I listen to the most.
To me, it seemed the concert ended way too soon, O2 Academy in Sheffield doesn’t typically host club nights like the Leeds venue does so I was confused why Aitch was finished by quarter past 10? The more I watched and listened, the more and more I enjoyed it so was a little disappointed when he suddenly left the stage and didn’t come back on for a typical encore.
