Cannibal Ox - Oslo, London July 2015

How  does someone like me,  with absolutely zero blagging skills end up backstage with Cannibal Ox? Well it’s a long and complicated process that starts with the decision to become a doctor, swiftly followed by years of torture in an NHS hospital, during which at some point you hear ‘The Cold Vein’ immediately become obsessed with it and proceed to bide your time over the next 14years until they release a second album and tour in London.

But the careful planning and manipulation of fates doesn’t end there, you subliminally plant ideas in the mind of a visiting Italian tourist that it would be a great idea to smoke a bunch of weed and drink a whole lot of beer, so that they whitey right at the start of the gig and muggins here has to perform first aid on them to stop them from going into cardiac arrest, and as the immortal lines “My mother said you sucked my pussy when you came out” you have to run back in and out of the gig as you are torn between saving this idiots life and seeing one of your all time favourite Hip Hop artists perform one of your favourite albums ever!!

You then miss the start of the gig as you ensure the life of a fellow Can Ox fan is saved, but you don’t care because you are just so hyped to see them and the venue isn’t that big so you’re sure they’ll come out at the end to meet us. The performance is awesome, Vast Aire’s lyrics are coming at you fast and thick, Vordul Mega at his side spinning his dystopian vision in front of your eyes. There’s some dude up on stage called Double-AB that for some reason is still on stage, but you don’t care, cos Can Ox are here!! Vast Aire’s face makes you chuckle cos he keeps looking at the crowd with a cheeky grin and you wonder what he’s thinking as we are all going mental at him, raising our hands, chanting, whatever he commands, I look across at Vordul Mega, he seems to smile at me as I leap into the air bouncing to Harlem nights.

The gig ends, I can’t quite believe it, I go and wait by the merch stand hoping they’ll come out, they don’t, I am crestfallen, then the security lady who was helping with the Italian guy spots me, we have a good laugh about fainting at hip hop gig, I lament that I haven’t been able to meet my heroes, the next thing I know she’s shoving a AAA backstage pass in my hand and telling me to go and have fun!! I almost lose my shit, hug her and disappear backstage.

Vast Aire is sitting down, no sign of Vordul Mega, a few hangers on and I wait while Vast Aire is visibly bored by a drunken groupie who has somehow managed to worm her way past security and is claiming to be doing a 'study' that clearly requires a personal interview with Can Ox - I overhear him giving her his number - I could have had his number!! but then that would have been creepy and stalkerish. They finish, surprisingly I don’t completely chat gibberish, it's like some weird sort of zen calm has come over me, I thank him for the gig, thank him for well, everything, including shit he has no connection to what so ever - penicillin, the fall of the Berlin wall… just kidding… I enquire about more music, he tells me there is much in the pipelines with a wry grin and more visits to the UK - YES!! I leave him as he tells me to check out the Harlem Nights video which has just been released. I enter another room, Vordul Mega is there, I tell him that Cold vein is up there for me with Liquid Swords. Vordul Mega almost looks as though he’s about to cry, he tells me that before they wrote it, they sat around listening to Liquid Swords and how it inspired them to make The Cold Vein, we hug, I take photos, they are lovely, they sign everything for me!!

I am star struck, but reluctantly I have to leave, but I leave having had one of the best nights of my life.