It was perfect for a Sunday night gig. Not too crowded and it was over by 11.30pm with no protracted encores stretching inconveniently beyond the closure of the bar.

All right for some with work tomorrow but I had the distinct feeling that the Stateside hip-hop crew were less than impressed with the response from an appreciative but fairly restrained crowd.

The repertoire from support Surgical Crew and Dready Kruger ranged from I Can Sing A Rainbow to Missy Elliot and proved an ideal mood-setter for the prompt arrival of GZA (although tempting to call him Gazza, it is pronounced "Gizza") alongside Masta Killa and DJ Mathematics.

They are three of the nine-man hip-hop collective that is the massive Wu-Tang Clan.

The uniqueness of their sound at a time when hip-hop was becoming massive in the UK was rivalled only by the likes of Cypress Hill.

On Sunday, they mainly played tracks from GZA's new album, Collections Of Classics, which combined old-skool tunes with some new material.

An unaccompanied rap from the usually sublime GZA somehow fell flat while watching him jigging to a recording of one he had done earlier was odd for a stage show.

The trio went wrong and forgot the words only once but quickly explained that this was real hip-hop and they weren't lip-syncing so they were allowed to make mistakes sometimes.

I had no complaints - a warm, friendly, enjoyable gig but the anticipation of some fresh new material played at the back of my mind and was never quite satisfied.