No one would have believed, in the first few years of the 21th century, that gig goers in Newcastle Upon Tyne were being watched from the land of Shaolin, otherwise known as Staten Island.

No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized by members of the Wu (GZA and Masta Kill)a as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply around pints of cider. Few men even considered the possibility that they would come to play a show at Newcastle University Union on 11 May 2004 19:30.

And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this place with reddened sleepy eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans to totally rock the crowd.

I got my tickets.