Tonight Matthew Herbert is a ham. He’s Buster Keaton, awkwardly stumbling swinging and grooving around, like he’s in his own silent movie, like the film’s been sped up as he twitches and whirls maniacally around, over exaggerating his hyperactive dance. But he’s not in a silent movie, he’s performing with a combination of his English Big band and Australian ring ins and the spectacle couldn’t possibly be more amazing. It’s a little touch of theatre, a bit of showmanship that combined with the classiness of the musicianship and cleverness of the arrangements elevates this performance so much higher than your regular gig going experience. It’s possible that I haven’t understood his big band experience until tonight, not only has he arranged the brass, woodwind and percussion to take the big band sound into his own idiosyncratic musical world, the rickety clipped almost percussive melodies that he is famous for, yet he also samples live and provides added digital ruffage to the mix with his sure, precocious and slightly mischievous hands.
They play mostly from their latest album, There’s Me and There’s You, with Eska Mtungwazi’s vocals throughout, utterly spellbinding, a powerhouse of range. There’s more theatre, “Tonight we are reading the Herald Sun,” offers Herbert as all the musicians hold it up and proceed do the only worthwhile thing you can do with that horrible tome of celebrity gossip and misinformation. Tear it up, the sounds evolving into “The Story, a delightful swing number with a pulsing jazz groove. For the next few songs the big band continues to pick up the bits of paper, screw them up and take pot shots at each other, creating a slightly surreal effect, particularly during the more poignant musical moments. Later Herbert and Eska wear black hoods over their heads and do their business faultlessly. Surprisingly they play The Audience, from Bodily Functions, have three encores, whilst also making us all contribute by singing a note which Herbert then samples and integrates into the music. Most importantly though they transport us to another time and place, this otherworldly realm where class and technology intersect. The experience to me was a little like Trainspotting, the jokes, the contradictions, the hamminess coming thick and fast alongside these marvelous moments of jaw dropping musical genius. They finally fished with One Life, with Herbert deconstructing the band in front of us, ordering off the brass, woodwind, percussion and bass, little by little, leaving only Eska and the pianist, and the most subdued emotional joy until Eska herself walked off, a leaving the solitary notes from the piano. I turned to the person beside me and I saw tears. It was that kind of show
-Bob Baker Fish
