The Roots at the St James

By REBECCA BARRY

If they can pull it off with Fur Elise, the Funeral March and Shake, Rattle and Roll, imagine what the Roots could do for a Ronan Keating song.

Proving their bedrock goes deep, the seven-strong Philly crew jammed, slammed and thank-you-ma'amed their heroes all the way from the 1800s to 2003.

Who said the White Stripes were the coolest live band on the planet?

These guys possess all the excitement of a rock band, the panache of a jazz band and the curiosity of a DJ in a record store.

If you blinked you would've missed it, but in between rapper Black Thought's never-ending stream of rhymes and the rhythm section's rollicking grooves were tributes to the Beastie Boys, Salt 'N Pepa, Prince, Bobby Brown and Outkast, to name a few.

Sure, the pop medley near the end was all a bit of a hoot - even Beyonce's Crazy In Love and Nelly's It's Gettin' Hot In Here cropped up.

But it was their astounding musicianship, that innate sense of timing that told them when to drop back or unleash their fizz like a bottle of shaken champagne. One minute they were plunged into darkness, hanging on the barest of notes, the next they were rocking out with the intensity of a bludgeon to the head.

Though popular success has largely eluded them, you wouldn't have known it - whoops of either euphoria or sheer amazement abounded during a god-like guitar solo and an insane jam session as the weirdly spelled ?uestlove and the percussionist beat the living daylights out of the skins. At times they created a sound like rolling thunder or a basketball bouncing around a half-pipe.

Whoever said hip-hop was just two turntables and a microphone obviously hasn't been to a Roots gig. And you know you're seeing something out of the ordinary when you spot members of both Blindspott and Concord Dawn in the crowd.