Like a Freaky Swarm of Bees

You know that old cliché about music having the power to uplift you and transform your very existence? Well, turns out it’s pretty much true. (Who’d’ve thought, eh?) After a fairly rough week at work that left me shattered, I went along to last week’s Acoustica to see Nizlopi, and slightly against the odds had a helluva time.

I’d somehow missed out on the JCB Song, and so didn’t really know a whole lot about Leamington Spa’s finest, but a bit of homework and a quick watch of the JCB video convinced me it was going to be a decent evening.

First up was a rapper called Jimmy Davis, a real Brummie, who must have wondered what he’d stumbled into when he walked into the normal Acoustica set up, with soft lighting, chairs and tables and candles. And it has to be said, in front of an audience made up of balding, middle-aged middle-class types (and that was just the women). Hardly, his core audience, I wouldn’t’ve thought…

To his credit, though, throughout a witty and intelligent set of soft-ish hip hop, he was relentlessly upbeat, never once getting frustrated by the unwillingness of punters to leave their seats. Good man. I’ve not got much time for being berated by younger, cooler types, and this balding, middle-aged middle class feller enjoyed his set immensely.

There are three downloads that I can find for Jimmy Davis, which I think are available from the Channel 4 website, a couple of which I’ll put up here:

Sown the Seed

Jimmy Davis

Nizlopi

If things were a little awkward for Jimmy Davis, the Nizlopi thing was even more of a strain on the Acoustica format. There were quite a few younger punters than normal in the hall, and the whole sitting at tables thing was always going to be a problem.

And I think Nizlopi dealt with it pretty well. They chose not to come onto the stage at all at first, preferring to set up in amongst the tables, completely unmiked, delivering three great songs that clearly took everyone’s breath away. I loved the combination of Luke Concannon’s extraordinary voice and John Parker’s stand up bass / beatboxing.

After this they moved onto the stage and it got a little noisier, and with a couple of returns to playing amongst the tables, they managed to balance the slightly schizophrenic nature of the evening pretty well. They clearly make a real attempt to connect with their audience with Luke seeming to direct his voice and gestures all over the hall, and you could say that there website has got a similar nature to it, with forums, jukeboxes and even a “Demand Nizlopi play near you” facility. Only one download available unfortunately, although it is a good one:

Extraordinary

And I can’t resist putting up the video for JCB song. I know you’ve all seen it before, but still…



Cracking evening, Al!