@ Mello Mello - 27.01.12 - We, The Undersigned | The Fire Beneath the Sea | The River Niger Orchestra
The dreary image of moody white kids with guitars is so inherently attached to inner city live music that Rebelsoul and Audio Voyeurs’s night of African and Jamaican tunes proved too much to resist. Just as refreshing was the eclectic mix of faces in the crowd that night; rather than just the beardy bunch of musos and students that hold up venues there were older people, younger people and people with proper jobs. I assume that most of them, like me, were relatively unfamiliar with afro-beat music but were keen and hungry to have their world’s shaken up, to have something to dance to or at very least shelter from the icy cold bastard of a Friday night…
And it wasn’t long before Mello’s cosy atmosphere and an exotic soundtrack courtesy of Audio Voyeur had the place steaming. The tunes were of an extremely broad range; traditional African music was played alongside dub reggae and rock steady. There was even a bit of jazz in there if I’m not very much mistaken as I may very well be. There’s nothing like getting out your musical comfort zone to shake you out of an indie band funk, and for anybody who is just a bit sick of contemporary western music at the moment, events like Version Excursion are the perfect remedy.
The first of the night’s live acts was We The Undersigned, a raggedy ska collective consisting of a king-fit feast of musical influences. The term ‘genre-hopping’ has become one of the uglier clichés in modern music so instead we’ll just say everything was thrown in there, not in some clever attempt at artistic poise but rather in a spontaneous explosion of youth and energy. The first part of the set saw the band blasting out straight up ska stuff with enough brass instruments crammed onto Mello’s tiny stage to nullify the microphones. This got the crowd at the front of the stage bouncing, but near the middle most of the bustle was from people pushing to and from the bar for drinks. This was no reflection of the band’s performance but an inconvenience of Mello’s being such a narrow venue. It has to be commended when live music is good enough to pull punters in off the street but an inevitable consequence is having a large proportion of more casual music lovers and more serious alcohol lovers. It was towards the end of WTU’s set that things really got interesting though. The second half saw them bring on a host of different guest scouse rappers. Impressively, a lot of the stuff they did seemed to be freestyled. To see rap performed so rapturously over a huge live band is an exhilarating feeling and it culminated in a group rebel yell.
Just as delightful were the River Niger Orchestra group of veteran musicians who were afro-beat to the core. The level authenticity and mad syncopated rhythms had the audience captivated and even participating in parts. The singer treated the crowd to an otherworldly poetry to such effect that it seemed a tiny part of Liverpool was in Africa that night. The level of musicianship was even more astounding for the fact that one of the keyboard players had never played with the group before and had been drafted in to replace a horn player. It finally has to be said that the band’s bassist is one of the coolest men on the planet.
Version Excursion is exactly the kind of night Liverpool’s music scene needs if it wants to be saved from stagnation. It also seems very commercially successfully and apt at attracting Friday night crowds who would never otherwise go to see live music. For this reason it might have benefitted from a larger venue, but then again, the soul of a place like Mello’s is hard to find anywhere else.
Words: Joseph Smith
Photography: Koto @ Rebel Soul
Links:
We The Undersigned:
http://www.facebook.com/wetheundersigned
The Fire Beneath The Sea:
http://www.facebook.com/thefirebeneaththesea?sk=info
River Niger Orchestra:
http://www.rivernigerarts.com/
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