Grieves and Budo hit the subterranean confines of Cambridge’s Middle East downstairs on Monday. The duo performed their big energy, multi-genre influenced hip hop at a high level leaving the mostly full venue (not bad for a Monday night) no doubt satisfied. Opening the set were frat rap duo Boom Box, the guys seemed to have difficulty connecting with the kids as they, in ever-increasingly futile attempts to rouse the disinterested crowd, doused water out from the stage. “You guys like dubstep?” asked one of the MCs to a mostly negative response. The rappers still went on with the song which was OK, but came off sloppy in performance (incl an entirely (poorly) lip synced chorus hook). So that set sort of sucked.

Up next was SF MC K Flay, who definitely brought a confidence and quality of performance that was lacking in the opening set. Thank God. K Flay’s style is sort of feverish, kinetic, almost stream-of-consciousness, as one sharply tipped line gives way to the next and so forth. The crowd seemed to get more involved as the set went, as her Boston fanbase seemed to expand which each song. Girl used a live drummer, which added a nice underlying strength/lower-end to the performance. About two-thirds into the set K Flay dropped an on-the-spot-created beat (which you’d never be able to tell) that she proceeded to verbally slay which each freestyled set of rhymes. It was that sort of “the moment” in the set where she was over with the Middle East crowd, the house sort of it all nodding heads approvingly in unison.

Grieves and Budo blew through a set that covered all eras of their partnership. And it was apparent that no matter how old or new each song was at least 80% the house knew no less than 100% of the words to every single song. And Grieves (the MC half of the duo) did a great job of keeping the kids psyched up and involved (as if they needed it), telling stories, cracking jokes (Budo hadn’t changed his pants for a week), waxing about Boston, etc. Budo, too, did his part switching from horns, to keys, to guitar, back to horns, on to keys, etc, all the while acting as Grieves’ hype man and back up. We love Grieves and Budo and we loved the set. We definitely left happy.

Grieves and Budo (Official)