Date: 29th November 2006
Venue: Carling Academy

This was a big one for me. If you were to ask me who my favorite Music Type person/band thing is i would say Mr Josh Davis aka DJ Shadow.

I like to think of him as the most humble man in music. Any interview I have read about him or seen about him, i always think thats the way he comes across. Even his DJ name “Shadow”, he chose that because he views himself as a producer and feels that producers should always be in the background. He is one of those artists that I didn’t get first time round, but on the second listed BY FECK did I realise how good this guy is!!!

His first album “Endtroducing” was one of those “Breakthrough” albums back in 1996 when labels like “Trip Hop” and “Big Beat” were the in thing, nothing wrong with that, but Shadow is much more than an easy to fit into Label. All though prodominatley schooled in Hip Hop, Josh used the music that influenced Hip Hop to bring out a record that is diverse in styles taste and influence.

After that he was involved in the “Unkle” project with Mo’ Wax boss, James Lavelle and created the “Psyence Fiction” album. (Well when I say involved, Shadow pretty much did it all cause can’t see what Lavelle did on the record other than take the money!!) Ever since Endtroducing, Shadow has been the my fav.

Anyway, onto the Gig. The night started off good when Skiv’s better half, the lovely Rona offered to driveus so allowing yours truely to partake in a few light ales :P. Marc was also in tow and my brother in all things Hip Hop, Andy was there with his bruv Ian. Andy is a huge Shadow fan as well.

The humble Josh takes the stage and starts a breif chat with the crowd before his set starts.

“How many of you have heard Endtroducing?” he says, everyone cheers,

“How many of you have heard the Unkle Album?” he says, everyone cheers,

“How many of you have heard The Private Press?” he says, everyone cheers

“How many of you have heard The Outsider?” he says, people boo!

Ok, I will admit that The Outsider is a bit different from what you’d expect from Shadow, lots of vocals and maybe not overly complicated beats, but I still like it, at least Glasgow Audiences are honest and fair play to Shadow, he excepted this and just said, “Hey man I got to keep evolving in my Music”

Regardless of the frost reception at the mention of The Outsider, the crowd soon warm up to Josh as he start the set with “Bilding Steam from A Grain of Salt” and mixes flawlessly into “Talkie Walkie”. The visuals in the background are stunning, falls in with Shadow’s “I am in the background” approach as you spend most of your time watching the projector Screen.

Shadow kept busy behind the decks moving from them to his famous Akai sampler and his CD decks and just kept the tracks ‘a rollin from his impressive back cat. He is joined on stage by vocalist Chris James for “Erase You” and “You Made It” from The Outsider and fellow Quannum and old friend of Josh, Lateef The truth Speaker lays down some Hip Hop Lyrics for “Enuff” and “Mashin’ On The Motorway”. From Unkle era Shadow we heard “Be There” with Ian Brown’s Vocal’s, “Rabbit In Your Headlights” with Thome Yorke’s vocals and “Nursery Ryhme” with Badly Drawn Boy’s vocals, all good tracks but nothing got the crowd’s attention as much as “Organ Donar”

As soon as you hear the first notes from the track the crowd went nuts, but shadow stopped the tune. On the Projector Screen behind him something about “yeah I know its that Organ Tune again, but people really seem to like it” scrolls up and people continue to cheer. He holds off going into the tune for a few minutes and by this time the crowd are yelling and stamping and as the phrase “Looks like you have an organ going, no wonder the song has so much body” is played near everyone in the crowd starts jumping about.

This was the gig I was most looking forward to this year. It’s been 4 years since I last saw Shadow and I thought he was good then. He is even better now. I wish people would stop being so critical about the Outsider, at least Shadow does what he want and not what people want, does the world really need another “Endtroducing” or “Private Press”? I think not.

There is only one Josh Davis, catch him if you can.