Wretch 32 , Black and White Tour

Before Wretch 32 took to the stage, MOBO-nominated Loick Essien preformed his recent hits ‘Love Drunk’, ‘How We Roll’ and ‘Me Without You’ to an excited crowd at the intimate Concorde 2 on Brighton’s sea front. Loick has such great stage presence and an amazing voice; I wanted him to stay on longer! There was an especially awkward moment during the set when Loick made the mistake of yelling “hello Bristol!” to the Brighton crowd, and was met with angry boo's. However, Loick didn’t quite catch on to his mistake until the end of his set and but tried to make it up to the disgruntled crowd by performing an acoustic version of ‘Me Without You’, changing the lyrics to “trying to be the me without Brighton”.

Wretch 32 opened his set with his album's namesake ‘Black and White’ and saved his more popular hits until the end. The set consisted of a mixture of genres; some tracks were very rocky, whilst others were grime. Although his versatility is quite impressive, the set just didn’t flow properly. I was also surprised at how many of his songs were slow, and as lovely as ‘Hush Little Baby’ (featuring Ed Sheeran) and ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ (featuring Delilah) are, they did bring down the energetic vibe of the place. However, he did perform much loved songs such as his recent number one ‘Don’t Go’ (featuring Josh Kumra) and ‘Unorthodox’ (featuring Example). Wretch 32 finished on a good note, blasting out his hit debut single ‘Traktor’ much to the crowd’s excitement.

Overall, I found that I enjoyed Loick Essien’s performance more that Wretch 32’s. Wretch 32’s performance was good, but I was a bit disappointed at the lack of atmosphere during the slower tracks. Support acts: Duchess, Sincere, Scorcher, Teezy and Loick Essien