The Lytics

Rather than bemoan the small turnout for their Saturday night show, the members of the Lytics -- a four-man hip-hop crew from Winnipeg -- instead chose to seize the moment and make life-long fans out of the crowd, beckoning each new entrant to the front of the stage. They also took the opportunity to try out half a dozen new tracks on the audience. The new material finds the crew pushing their sound forward, even embracing some electro-dance beats. Trading rhymes back and forth like Jurassic 5, the crew's ebullient nature gave their set a laid-back energy while Alex Sannie's high-pitched vocals made their songs soar. Refreshingly lacking many of hip-hop's live tropes, the Lytics were the consummate performers, humble yet confident and armed with an arsenal of tunes most artists would kill for.