The Slackers
Tuesday 19 May, 2009
Underworld, Camden
Support: The Urban Voodoo Machine + The Skints
On Friday The Slackers proved triumphant over furious winds and biting downfalls to add a summery ska feel to Brighton. Today the weather is back to its sunny, ska-soaked best and it’s apparent that people have brought dancing shoes with them, in droves. Tonight’s Underworld show is a busy affair.
The Skints prove to be a little pensive following a bold opening set. The London quartet is not bowled over by a performance that from this vantage point is a solid set. Perhaps it’s down to growing pains: tonight’s set is heavy on new material (it’s 20 minutes before the band play a ‘known’ song), a move that risks alienating those that have been impressed before but ultimately ends up whetting the appetite for the debut full length being recorded next month.
The Urban Voodoo Machine is a dirty little secret. In parts of London and at various leftfield festivals the band has proven as popular as a reality TV YouTube clip. Tonight, though, the band is in uncharted waters. Fortunately it doesn’t take long for the sometime nine, sometime ten-piece to mark itself out. There’s a distinctive New Orleans flavour to the music: part blues, part jazz, part unclassifiable. Accordion, trumpet, banjo, violin and gong are all in attendance. Drumming duties are uniquely dealt with by multiple percussionists, who use up more energy than a battery bunny, running and jumping around the kit whilst generally just cavorting (not to mention one drummer is actually dressed as a zombie). It’s gimmick heavy for sure but suspend any scepticism and this is a hugely enjoyable performance. It’s manic, peculiar, and wickedly entertaining.
The Slackers cannot be upstaged. Fact. Even following a performance as good as that of The Urban Voodoo Machine the band strolls onstage and immediately owns every pair of ears and eyes in the room. There’s a reason the NYC sextet has been playing for more than 15 years and it’s not down to good luck or fluke.
With that experience emerges talent. Tonight’s set is not just a cut-and-paste tour job. Of course there are staple songs that have been played throughout this particular UK circuit but the set is divvied up: songs added, songs removed, order adjusted. There’s no way you can level the claim that this band plays the same every night, and that is very refreshing. So there’s no ‘Sarah’ but there is ‘Propaganda’; no ‘Everyday is Sunday’ but an affirmative to ‘Don’t You Want a Man’; there’s even a double thumbs-up for a cover of Sam Cooke’s ‘Cupid’ that is every bit a seasoned ingredient of a Slackers set. And then a brand new song is thrown in for good measure.
Every bit of this, and I mean every bit, is lapped up by a compact crowd that decides the soup-de-jour is dancing, skanking and singing along, and not always in tune. It’s a hearty sight that goes a long way to making up for the of late regularly sparse Underworld. It’s all great fun. Everybody enjoys the almost absurd “Reggae Flu” skit; everybody takes pleasure from ‘Married Girl’, ‘Manuel’ and ‘Feed My Girl’. It’s a near perfect set, a near perfect line-up and just a damn fine evening to boot. Not bad for a Tuesday evening really.
Tuesday 19 May, 2009
Underworld, Camden
Support: The Urban Voodoo Machine + The Skints
On Friday The Slackers proved triumphant over furious winds and biting downfalls to add a summery ska feel to Brighton. Today the weather is back to its sunny, ska-soaked best and it’s apparent that people have brought dancing shoes with them, in droves. Tonight’s Underworld show is a busy affair.
The Skints prove to be a little pensive following a bold opening set. The London quartet is not bowled over by a performance that from this vantage point is a solid set. Perhaps it’s down to growing pains: tonight’s set is heavy on new material (it’s 20 minutes before the band play a ‘known’ song), a move that risks alienating those that have been impressed before but ultimately ends up whetting the appetite for the debut full length being recorded next month.
The Urban Voodoo Machine is a dirty little secret. In parts of London and at various leftfield festivals the band has proven as popular as a reality TV YouTube clip. Tonight, though, the band is in uncharted waters. Fortunately it doesn’t take long for the sometime nine, sometime ten-piece to mark itself out. There’s a distinctive New Orleans flavour to the music: part blues, part jazz, part unclassifiable. Accordion, trumpet, banjo, violin and gong are all in attendance. Drumming duties are uniquely dealt with by multiple percussionists, who use up more energy than a battery bunny, running and jumping around the kit whilst generally just cavorting (not to mention one drummer is actually dressed as a zombie). It’s gimmick heavy for sure but suspend any scepticism and this is a hugely enjoyable performance. It’s manic, peculiar, and wickedly entertaining.
The Slackers cannot be upstaged. Fact. Even following a performance as good as that of The Urban Voodoo Machine the band strolls onstage and immediately owns every pair of ears and eyes in the room. There’s a reason the NYC sextet has been playing for more than 15 years and it’s not down to good luck or fluke.
With that experience emerges talent. Tonight’s set is not just a cut-and-paste tour job. Of course there are staple songs that have been played throughout this particular UK circuit but the set is divvied up: songs added, songs removed, order adjusted. There’s no way you can level the claim that this band plays the same every night, and that is very refreshing. So there’s no ‘Sarah’ but there is ‘Propaganda’; no ‘Everyday is Sunday’ but an affirmative to ‘Don’t You Want a Man’; there’s even a double thumbs-up for a cover of Sam Cooke’s ‘Cupid’ that is every bit a seasoned ingredient of a Slackers set. And then a brand new song is thrown in for good measure.
Every bit of this, and I mean every bit, is lapped up by a compact crowd that decides the soup-de-jour is dancing, skanking and singing along, and not always in tune. It’s a hearty sight that goes a long way to making up for the of late regularly sparse Underworld. It’s all great fun. Everybody enjoys the almost absurd “Reggae Flu” skit; everybody takes pleasure from ‘Married Girl’, ‘Manuel’ and ‘Feed My Girl’. It’s a near perfect set, a near perfect line-up and just a damn fine evening to boot. Not bad for a Tuesday evening really.
Last edited by Al on Thu Jun 18, 2009 8:15 pm; edited 1 time in total