by Brandon van der Berg @vdb.brandon
The way these acts interact with the crowd was strikingly unique, one consistency was the affection and approachability of all the acts shown outwardly. For musicians who have such a clear and bright understanding of poetic flow, all are damningly humble about the whole thing. As performers, they’re shy and need coaxing out, but as the audience does equally what followed was the strong, steady growth of friendship.
Read about the night below.
Danny Burrito
What a name. He explains it stems from something he was eating called a “Cowboy Burrito” once.
I’m half-cut, I’m on a comfy chair in the corner, and I’m being softly entertained by someone somewhat familiar and approachable on stage cracking jokes as people start coming in. He also just starts spitting bars on top of the backing track the sound engineer was playing and, rather startled I assumed the “oh damn” facial position.
He starts fronting, now one can safely assume this was rehearsed but equally safely assume it was not, either way, I’ve never seen someone introduce their act by freestyling about love and safety to the audience. What a charming man.
Something about the way his eyebrows crunch beneath his forehead, his eyes loosely stare underneath his nose and a gentle push behind each of the words makes each one feel completely fresh and interesting, as if I’d never heard them before. Each rhyming couplet, a weighted soliloquy and the finale of each sentence, a rampart reminder of fanatical deep thought. Total linguistic freedom. Or as Mozart would have said, “Tha boy got silly wid it”.
I hardly noticed the guitarist at first, hair stoically hanging, sitting in that upright façade of a classical guitarist but dressed accordingly for an acid-jazz concert following. That shirt was wild.
He is also The Pied Piper. I will explain in a moment.
The dynamic and technical range of this player in keeping with style and constantly supporting the songs’ direction and the vocalist in a profoundly essential way is a dead giveaway of taste and experience. Everything from your typical jazz runs, to ethereal delays and reverb to face-melting shredding to snake charming the audience with a beautifully executed flute section that appeared out of nowhere in comedic “where were you hiding that?” fashion. His whole appearance reeked of talent and skill.
Entirely, the set was something really impressive and something dictionaries aspire to.
For fans of Hobo Johnson and Eminem.
GUY
A storyteller and a strong, intimate leader.
The first thing you notice about a GUY performance isn’t the quality of the musicians on stage, it’s not the irresistible rhythm behind his songwriting or how his confidence as a frontman breathes out this sort of slowly brewed wisdom, it is his immediacy as a human being to form a personal connection with the audience as a friend before anything else and is a pure reflection of his authenticity as a person off stage.
Humility as an entertainer is rarely formed and it makes the subtle hints of nervousness completely charming. Audiences will mirror the performance they’re watching, so seeing them both grow in confidence alongside each other is psychologically wonderful from an observer’s point of view.
The way the drummer uses the hi-hat to perfectly gauge lifts in the song couldn’t be paired finer, each crack from the drum kit itches every wrinkle in my brain.
Even if I was blind drunk I would understand the emotion behind each lyric with unfaltering clarity, such a strong sincerity behind the rhythm, punctuated and flowing like a well-cared Japanese garden. Every muscle in my body is trying to place me on a tropical island flooded with family and a good stage for these guys to play on. What an impeccable vibe.
The composition of their movement, unrestricted and wholly natural choreography, everyone is just there to groove. A harmony of orchestral screaming from every ticket holder contests the PA like an improvised dance, that invisible harsh excitement that makes you completely giddy to be there.
What a privilege to be able to write about it all.
For fans of Berwin, Dave and Burna Boy.
Find him on Instagram or Spotify. Axel French Versatile and fragrant in his redolent gestures. He opens the stage by lathering himself over it, flooding across from left to right, an expressive takeover with a glamorous presentation. A recognisable groove tilted my head around the exceptionally tall man in front of me to see the same drummer as GUY killing it again, he is a drummer with complete percussive freedom and fluidity. Approachability expedites a certain, as he put it, “C’est la vie live life and be free” blasé attitude which extends openly towards the crowd which he to some extent plays ‘hard to get’ with, glancing over them quickly as if to spread as much warmth as he can with a single sway of his eyes. It’s really tightly delivered with a brilliant impact and some of the experimentation with dissonance in the progressions is really cool. Slightly reclusive vulnerability and a really unafraid confrontation with the dark places in your mind this is an emphatic collaboration of connection and affection. At times the band looks to each other for reassurance which carries a really great sense of community and cohesive enthusiasm for the performance. Often he is found side on, clenched closely in himself, and gripping the microphone sideways and upright similar to how a gangster would hold a pistol in a sitcom, he then leans backward slightly and squints his eyes downward. It’s something out of a 2000s skater poster still shot. Very cool. A set with a real sense of progression and entertaining interaction with the crowd left no one in that room feeling left out. For fans of Oscar Jerome. Find him on Instagram.
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