Professor Green kicked off the Freshers Ball in some style with a great performance that really got the crowd buzzing for the rest of the night. The rapper from Hackney performed some of his greatest hits such as ‘I Need You Tonight’, ‘Jungle’, ‘Just Be Good To Green’ and ‘Monster’.
The best thing about his performance was the way he interacted with a very large Freshers crowd that completely filled Room 1. He seemed to love the idea of performing with students and would often stop to talk to the crowd in order to get the Freshers fired up.
Amongst his best hits, Green also included some of his new material including a brand new verse from an unreleased single that was exclusively for the Freshers. He seemed to really enjoy exchanging banter with the freshers crowd and was always up close with them, he even managed to jump into the crowd a few times and seemed to be loving the atmosphere.
It’s fair to say that the freshers clearly loved Professor Green’s performance and the feeling was mutual as Green tweeted about his gig afterwards. He gave Loughborough his ‘Biggest love’ and said that the freshers were ‘incredible’. He also credited the performance of Naughty Boy who followed afterwards, ‘I’m a terrible example of how to behave naughty boy is killing it!!’.
Naughty Boy’s set at the Fresher’s ball is best described as one huge party. After Professor Green graced the stage with his great performance himself and his crew were all out on stage with Naughty Boy, dancing, drinking and having a great time with the rest of us. Now I had already assumed that they were acquainted but to see such a party on stage made everyone else in room 1 have an even better night.
Professor Green even tweeted “I'm a terrible example of how to behave naughtyboy is killing it!!” with a picture of Room 1 having a great time and their presence on stage heightened the whole set.
After this came one of the best sets I have seen at Loughborough. There is little to really say about Benga’s set at the Fresher’s ball other than it was brilliant. Quite simply, brilliant. Effortlessly changing the vibe from Drum & Bass to Hip Hop back to Drum & Bass and then finally to a bit of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Benga delivered on all fronts.
Looking down into room 1 you could just see the energy flowing through everyone, the crowd were up for it. Yes, a fair few people had left after Professor Green and Naughty Boy but they definitely missed out. For me, Benga was the best of the night demanding energy from the crowd despite it being 3am.
I also feel as though a lot of credit should be given to his hype man (who’s name I unfortunately did not catch). As his job title suggests he got the crowd going, but he also had one hell of a singing voice, surprising the entire room when he broke out in song.
Creating moshpit after moshpit Benga had complete control over room 1, delaying the drops perfectly using us like putty in his hands until he decided to privilege us with the appropriately disgustingly huge D&B drops. The occasional roar from Benga himself that reached everyone in the huge room only added to the whole performance; he was as up for it as everyone else.
