Live Review: Body Count – Manchester

Hip-hop legend, Ice-T, brings his celebrated Crossover band back to the UK after a gap of six years, for a small run of dates that has him stopping at Manchester’s Ritz. The show is a sell-out, and the fifteen-hundred capacity crowd is jammed into the venue and are queuing up to and round the corner, mirroring the Palace Theatre on the other side of Oxford Road.

Germans Slope have the privilege of getting the evening off to a ripping start and have been granted a backdrop to show a large depiction of their second album, Freak Dreams, though the room on the stage itself seems quite narrow. Not that the band let such a thing put them off as they tear through a set of funk-infused metal, that is part Faith No More, part Red Hot Chili Peppers, and even part Sabbath. Never remaining in one musical place for too long, Slope take a whistle-stop tour through Metal’s history, be that in heavy stomps or progressive guitars, the band are always ready to surprise as to what will come next. There’s a shameless plug for an October headline show down in that-there London, before they blast out some two-steppin’ hardcore grooves.

Slope are treated well by the Ritz tonight, but there’s only one person we’re all here to see: Ice-Mutahfuckin’-T and his metal machine, Body Count. The stage’s artwork is simple but hugely effective, brilliant white illustrations on jet black backgrounds, which perfectly encapsulate the evening. As the time ticks around to nine o’clock, the Ritz is rammed like sardines and the sense of anticipation is palpable.

Finally, the Civil War intro begins, and the band take the stage, belting immediately into established opener, Body Count in the House, a fat-sounding calling card if ever there was one. Ice tells Manchester he didn’t travel all this way to see “a bunch of pussies” before asking where the pit is. Sitting second in the set is the medley of Slayer’s Raining Blood, which sees Ice’s son, Little Ice, joining on the vocals, and bassist Vincent Price, taking the mic on Postmortem, while wearing a Satyricon t-shirt.

The first surfers take to the skies during Bowels of the Devil, There Goes the Neighborhood is one of those songs that is worth the admission price alone and Ice introduces Manslaughter’s title track with a deeply unfashionable, but no less true, tirade; albeit with his tongue thrust into his cheek as he does so. Before that, the band pay tribute to the late Riley Gale of Power Trip, when they play the Carnivore album’s Point the Finger, and offer the night’s first insight into the band’s forthcoming album, Merciless, with the track The Purge. Built around a caveman snarl and with plenty of Slayerisms, this one was surely designed with the mosh pit in mind.

The other newbie is Psychopath, which finds Ice donning a stocking and taking inspiration from serial killers, while Ernie C’s guitar screams and squeals. No Lives Matter is less about Race and more about economic status and has a host of hands raised in the air. Drive By and Voodoo are probably the closest to Hip-Hop the band get, but not before the second cover medley of the evening: The Exploited’s War/ UK82/ Disorder, the big man’s collaboration with Slayer on the Judgement Night soundtrack back in 1993. And it became even more of a family affair when Ice and Jnr were joined by daughter/ sister, LeTisha for Talk Shit, Get Shot.

Only the highly controversial Cop Killer could close off the set, with the crowd belting back the mantra of “Fuck the police”.

Rather than leave the stage, Body Count utilise the Virtual Encore, where the lights go out and the band pretend to depart, only to be back when the lights come on again. If it were at all possible, the band take the performance to another level during the encore, beginning with Born Dead and the poignant This is Why We Ride, a song so powerful that it doesn’t need aggressive beats to get over its message.

As musicians, the band tick all the boxes, with Ill Will’s drums and Vincent’s bass laying a perfect platform for Ernie and Juan of the Dead’s guitars. Ice himself is a genial host, and at the age of sixty-six shows few signs of slowing down, let alone stopping.

The great surprise of the evening arrived at the end of the set, with the band playing a cover version-cum-reinterpretation of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. The tune was there, but Ice changed the lyrics to meet more personal worldview. As a big Floyd fan, I thought his version was an interesting approach to take to a sure-fire classic.

Not really sure what I was expecting from the evening, but whatever those expectations were, they were far exceed and then some by a show that will be in serious contention in five months-time when I’m picking my gig of the year.