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Post by grumpy on Sept 6, 2012 18:45:00 GMT
Saw these at the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds on Tuesday evening and they kicked up a storm. I'll do a full review at the weekend but meanwhile here's a song they did: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj5vrzDJr5w&feature=relatedIt's almost certainly been said elsewhere but if SBB haven't been invited to play at the closing ceremony of the Paralympics, it is reasonable to wonder why not. And here's another one they performed live last night: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcKLkDczuLs&feature=relatedCatch them if you can; you won't be disappointed.
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Post by I on Sept 7, 2012 9:57:36 GMT
Israel Vibration and One Foot Sammy have not been invited to appear either.
Observer
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Post by grumpy on Sept 7, 2012 10:38:48 GMT
I was going to refer to Israel Vibrartion in my longer review, Penny. I think the obvious answer to what was not an entirely serious question is that the people charged with delivering the Olympic closing ceremonies are not necessarily familiar with the non-mainstream and, even if they are, are probably under instructions to stick with the tried and trusted and, I assume, British.
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Post by grumpy on Sept 8, 2012 11:07:28 GMT
Tuesday night is never a favourite for going out as Wednesdays at work tend to be busy and intensive but who can resist a Congolese band? I certainly can’t. Work be hanged. Of course you hope the concert is worth it. Staff Benda Bilili is (or at least it is in Leeds) a seven-piece band, three of whom are in wheelchairs and one on crutches, the victims of childhood polio. These are the lead singers and two of them also play guitars. The rest of the band consists of a bass guitarist, drummer and a satonge player. The satonge is a home-made instrument containing a single string. I was too far from the front to get a full view but here, by the wonders of the internet is a photo of Roger, the satonge player’s instrument: I suspect from the sound it generates that it plays mainly by a tremolo technique though I am happy to be corrected. Suffice it to say that it makes a powerfully effective and sustained sound. The story of the band is probably well-known by now and is available on film and the internet so I won’t rehearse it here. It would be wrong to say that the concert was outstanding from beginning to end. The repertoire is of mixed quality and there are one or two rock-inflected work-outs too many but when they concentrate on the Congolese rumba, the results are little short of spiritual ecstasy (if you’ll forgive the portentous and pretentious). Like the best works of the great bands from the Congo, Staff Benda Bilili’s rumbas are works of masterly slowly-building crescendos. Almost surreptitiously the rhythm builds, the lead instruments work themselves up and explode into glorious knife-edge clarity and purity of sound and the voices soar. And, oh, those voices! Six of them sing often in harmony and anyone of the six could happily take the lead vocal part. Even the satonge player, who is also the band’s animateur, has a singing voice to die and be resurrected only to die again for. The voices are capable of modulating between mournful and joyous and almost any emotion in between effortlessly; the power and fluency are breathtaking and you forgive the very occasional lapse of the instrumentation into rock banality. The crystalline clarity of the music in their best tunes is helped by the superb acoustics of the venue, the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, but my regular gripe has to emerge again. When there is a band as danceable as this, the seating should be removed. Instead, there is hardly room to tap your feet let alone and get up and throw yourself about in frenzied joy. Another slight criticism is that the band didn't attempt any interaction with the audience between numbers. Maybe they have no English but the Crammed Discs man who introduced them had already established that a fair few of the audience had a bit of French. However the band were clearly enjoying themselves and transmitted that enjoyment to the audience so perhaps one shouldn't be too precious.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2012 18:25:06 GMT
"but my regular gripe has to emerge again" You can't keep a good man down Grumpy! Saw them on Jools Holland last year and they were very good.
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Post by prajna on Sept 9, 2012 21:02:46 GMT
SBB were a highlight at Womad in NZ earlier this year. While the frontmen are obviously attention-grabbing, I was particularly impressed by the drummer. Apparently he is different from the drummer on the first album, Tres Fort Fort. Played what looked like a homemade kit and gave one of the most astonishing drumming / percussion displays that I've seen.
SBB have released their second album in the last few days and I'm hoping to pick it up this week.
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Post by grumpy on Sept 20, 2012 18:29:45 GMT
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Post by Benj52 on Sept 21, 2012 11:43:28 GMT
Rock on, Chris!
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