If you only see one act this year – make it this one! (Jamiroquai in general)

Member Name: Flibble

Product:	Jamiroquai in general
Date:	25/02/02 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic songs, , Great ambience, Superb value for money

Disadvantages: Did it have to end?

I’ve been a fan of Jamiroquai for around ten years now – I kind of became hooked on their music after the purchase of their second album ‘Return of the Space Cowboy’ – I just found the music to be so refreshing and different from the mainstream dirge that seemed to be populating the charts.

Over the years I’ve bought pretty much all of the bands albums – culminating in the latest release ‘A Funk Odyssey’. It is this album that forms the basis for their current UK tour. At the minute Jay Kay and the rest of the band are tearing around the country performing at sell out gigs up and down the UK, on Friday night I was lucky enough to see them performing live at the SECC in Glasgow. Now, had everything gone to plan we would have arrived in ample time to see the supporting act for the tour – Beverley Night (Who has had some recent chart success of her own with ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’. However, being that my navigational skills are absolutely useless, we ended up getting stuck in a massive queue with everyone else at the car park just outside the venue and missing most of her show!

Not to worry though, we found a space to park the car and were soon inside the massive concert hall. As soon as you enter the SECC the first thing that strikes you is the sheer size of it all – absolutely massive. Once I had purchased my program and a rather cool looking T-shirt we made our way to our seats.

In front of us there was a massive standing area for people, with our seats just behind that – at this point the crowd seemed to be rather sparse, but not before too long the theatre was crammed full of fans, all waiting for the main show to start. The intro to ‘twenty zero one’ from the newly released album began to kick in, with massive video screens illuminated on either side of the stage with the now famous ‘buffalo man’ logo that is so synonymou
s with the bands album covers. With the crowd going absolutely crazy, lead singer Jay Kay burst onto the stage and started to strut his funky stuff.

The amazing sound was accompanied by a fantastic light show too, which seemed to suit the frenetic pace of the opening track no end – make no mistake, nobody does a live show like these guys. As well as giving us tracks such as ‘Little L’ and ‘Love Foolosophy’ we were also treated to some of their older tracks too – old favourites like ‘Travelling without moving’ and ‘Canned Heat’ were also belted out in terrific style. Between songs Jay would have a chat with the crowd, having a pop at the tabloid press in general and saying he couldn’t care less about the Brit awards – ‘I’ll just go home and polish my Grammy’ he told us all! And fair play to him, with a performance like this it’s beyond me why he hasn’t won anything, how can manufactured dirge like ‘West Life’ win awards, whilst something as fresh and unique as this sound not? It’s beyond me! Anyway, rant over!

One of the biggest applauses was for band member Sola Akingbola who was wearing a football style shirt in blue with ‘Jamiroquai’ on the front, with a little buffalo man printed on the back underneath a Scottish Saltier flag – he’ll never have to buy another pint in Glasgow after showing that off to the crowd! The dancing was amazing and the vocals sublime, this band simply have to be seen live as they put on such a great show.
Other tracks performed include the recently released ‘You give me something’, the ballad ‘Black Crow’ and the catchy ‘Bad Girls’ which he recently performed at the Brit Awards with Anastasia. The band managed to perform everyone’s favourites by and large and everyone agreed that it really was a memorable show, but the finale h
ad to be seen to be believed.

As Jay strode across the stage a deep and resonating bass could be heard – kind of like a huge monster striding through the theatre – it was this that formed the introduction to ‘Deeper Underground’, which was of course written for the movie ‘Godzilla’. Now, this is my favourite track of all time, so I was more than happy to hear this start up. The crows were going wild and so was Jay – he really does bring the audience into the whole act (literally, at this point there were about six members of the audience up on stage shaking their funk stuff alongside him!)

Giving a 90 minute performance of such quality was definitely worth the entry price and I wish I could go to the same show again – it was just so good, real value for money. Their must have been about nine or ten thousand people at the concert and I think it’s safe to say every single one of them left on a real high. Even if you’ve only heard one or two Jamiroquai tracks I would still strongly urge you to see this band live – there’s nothing else like them!

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