WINNIPEG -- She Bificus.
Ex-Winnipegger Bif Naked returned to her home town last night playing the Walker Theatre for the first time in her lengthy career.
"We used to play just across the street over there at the Royal Albert," Naked announced to a screaming crowd of 1,360, a majority who aren't even old enough to have been allowed to peek inside the hotel.
Wearing a short white navel-displaying tank top and hip huggers, Naked was an energetic, confident bundle of tattooed explosives, bouncing and prowling all over the stage, sometimes shouting out vocals more than singing.
MIXED SET
Backed by a four-piece band, Naked mixed up her set, playing new songs from the Purge album such as I Love Myself Today and Choking on the Truth, to hits such as Spaceman and Daddy's Getting Married.
She finished her 70-minute set with a sing-along cover of Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It.
NEW MATERIAL
The new material from Purge sounds a bit weak and pop-ish on the record, but came across stronger live with Naked's sometimes thin vocals augmented by a female backup vocalist who also played keyboards.
Toronto Rap-Metal group Project Wyze were the first of the five acts of the night to use guitars in their set.
Playing material from their major label debut misfits.strangers.liars.friends, the six member group is very good at what they do, unfortunately there is nothing about the band to set them apart from a growing number of similar sounding acts.
But fans who really liked the band could buy a pair of Project Wyze panties for $20.
Vancouver-based Swollen Members were third on the bill and got the party started with a short set of good-time hip-hop.
Baseball-cap wearing Mad Child ordered people out of their seats by getting into the crowd and yelling at them.
Once the crowd was standing they were treated to an energetic set by Mad Child, Prev and Moka Only, who joined the duo halfway through their 20-minute set.
Winnipeg duo Mood Ruff -- who would have fit in perfectly on the bill -- got called on stage at the end of the set for a free-style rhyme session and the local boys didn't disappoint.
BAD SOUND MIX
Jelleestone and two other MCs had some members of the crowd bopping their heads to the gangsta-inspired rhymes over a bed of mid-tempo beats, although a bad sound mix made it hard to make out exactly what they were rapping about.
Former SNFU bassist Rob Johnson, now going under the monicker Fresh Bread, got the biggest cheers of his set when Bif Naked came on stage during the rapper's final song and plugged the group's new album on her record label.
JAM! Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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