Despite Doom putting on an incredible homecoming performance, the event on the whole was nothing more than disappointing, largely due to the Roundhouse and its poor sound.

Appearing onstage an hour late (with the venue repeatedly playing Diplo’s Fabric Live 24 mix in the meantime, ignoring the live DJ’s waiting) the crowd was sufficiently agitated by the time the instrumental to ‘Accordion’ finally took over.

Lost in the moment, all was instantly forgiven as a masked heavyweight waddled on stage with a hype-man shining a torch in the faces of the front row – both shouting distorted vocals and trying their best to jump around. The excitement lasted to the end of the first verse, when it became blisteringly obvious that this was not what we’d paid to come and see. In line with no-show and impostor rumours Doom psyched us all, sending some guy twice his size out in the mask.

With the fakers swiftly disappearing to a now eased and laughing audience, it wasn’t long before Doom made his presence known. Let me say this – no one flows like Doom. Cats like Lord Finesse and Lyrics Born have word perfect breathing and live shows where you can hear every syllable, and for me these are the rap shows worth the cost of admission. But Doom really is on another level. Hearing it live added a new dimension to his rhymes, and most importantly showed what a unique talent he is.

That said, it’s unfortunate that the sound was the worst I’ve witnessed in a long time. It’s a real credit to Doom that his hypnotic rhyming was able to cut through to a room of mixed reactions. Whilst some were just happy to finally see the legend in person, others felt ripped off that what they’d waited so long to see was a ruined by poor timing and sound. Looking around the crowd during the worst points, the hyped looks of pleasure that Doom induced from being on stage were often replaced with people straining to hear what was going on.

Blitzing through a set list that touched on some of our favourites of his work – King Geedorah, Viktor Vaughan and Danger Doom all making appearances, but no KMD shout-outs – for the full 45 minutes Doom was on stage he owned it. Displaying a respect for his craft and the audience that you see so rarely in this genre, the masked one destroyed rumours of lazy live shows, bringing everything we love about his recorded game to an embracing audience, and using the live appearance to take it one notch higher. It’s just a shame the venue let him down.