"A major experiment from ‘Introducing’…Recreating a whole album which was modelled wholly from samples and taking it into the live arena with real instruments in front of some really note-taking head-nodding purists, -Plus I was sent by DJ Shadow’s management to get the low down & report back ;0)...Would they pull it off?
To set the scene, the Jazz Cafe was so packed, it was really uncomfortable to the point of crazy, this gig had obviously caught people’s attention.
One real downer was that the PA was ridiculously quiet where it needed to be banging with a nice low end for this, the crowd were still dancing though.
They band were a nine piece and apart from band leader Matt Derbyshire on guitar, Mike Reed on drums and Rob Pollard on bass, they comprised of 2 keyboardists, (Andy Laung and Mick Gilbert (who also played additional sax), Dave Gamble on decks, Simon Halstead on cello and vocalists Jenny Bell & Ollie Grig.
There was also some pre-programmed work on a laptop with some percussion and sound effects joining the mix seamlessly, it genuinely looked as if 99% of the stuff was being played straight live though.
Surprisingly, live vocal effects were used to convey the vocal samples & spoken word parts from the album, quite comically in some parts. The “Insight / Foresight” intro from “Midnight In A Perfect World” was belted out by front man Ollie Grig to give the crowd a cue to kick off, Jenny Bell handled some quite difficult & subtle parts too, bringing a better understanding of what some of the more ethereal parts actually were. Given that the albums ‘soupy’ sound buries some of them really low in the mix, this was a real unexpected treat.
The players pulled everything off really superbly too, I know the album pretty well and I was expecting some differences in instrumentation just literally due to the density of sound, but nothing jarred at any point.
Mike Reed’s drums were powerful enough to kick off the first bout of dancing during “The Number Song”, “Mutual Slump” was another highlight for him (maybe his snare should have been slightly tighter for the more characteristic ‘ringing’ sound on the LP at a push!).
The keyboards and sax in the epic “Changeling” (my fave of the Shadow’s entire repertoire) were done really subtly also where I’d expected them to have problems.
The only real slightly weak point from this angle was “Midnight In A Perfect World” which although slow, was a little lacking in power and it sounded as if they were having problems hanging it together in a couple of parts.
'Organ Donor' was the undoubted highlight though and they really pulled it off, the crowd was going off big time when Andy Laung was goofing about with his instrument but still playing it spot on.
I was watching him really closely during the set and he was studiously reading off a sheet in front of him and pulling off some major work, the harp sound that goes through “Stem” looked as if it was played by hand by him all the way through, no mean feat!
They were roundly appreciated at the end and simply had to come back.
For the encore, they explained that the album was obviously over and they didn’t want to play anything twice (one wag in the crowd shouted out “do it all again”!) but they had the innovative idea of doing a remix / medley of a bunch of tracks on the LP which flowed pretty well, the only thing I was unsure of was when it went 4/4 for one part as that did not really suit the style of the music, but I think this was simply a crowd pleasing gesture which totally worked on that score.
On the critical side, and this being REAL picky, the album’s got a certain atmosphere / ambience in the final mix which obviously wasn’t present with the live performance and was missed a little.
The volume played a fair part in this though and there’s just certain sonics that don't happen at that volume.
Also, there were a couple of tracks that sounded a little ‘tempered’ where the album versions are a little wilder sounding as well, but the attention to detail had more than likely caused them to tread a little carefully, I imagine the more they play it, the ‘looser’ they’ll get.
However, pulling that off as a live band 100% would be near impossible, it was as good as it would be capable of being to my ears, even seasoned sessioners couldn’t have done any better with months of rehearsal.
The volume of effort they must have put in was quite something, I spoke to the band leader Matt Derbyshire and he said it had been a real challenge to get everything right, taking about 6 weeks to get sorted to their satisfaction.
Matt also mentioned that they may possibly attempt the same thing with other classic albums of the genre with a view to taking it out with the band which sounds a great idea, although he did mention it was quite a costly exercise and they weren’t making a lot off it as they were such a large band – they do have a repeat performance at the Jazz Café on December 3rd so hopefully they’ll get that put right as they get more well known…You know what to do!
Outside, I did a little vox-pop with about 15 people who’d been inside just to get a general vibe off them...Just to give me something more to report back!
I basically asked if they’d enjoyed it, how they thought the band transferred the goods over and lastly if they were DJS himself, would they be happy with this as being representative.
In all honesty, there was very little in the way of negative comment, most of the criticism was for the venue overdoing the capacity and the low level of volume as there were a lot of people on the street side of the bar chatting during the show and you could hear this clearly even if you were near the stage, but as said before, this wasn’t the bands fault (shame it's a bit of a trend now though).
Strangely, one person thought they should have changed the music more and another said he was trying to not watch too much and just concentrate on the music, and one thought the only thing wrong was the band stopping between songs where the album is mostly segued which I thought was interesting, I’d put money on this gent not being a musician though!
One was surprised they didn’t thank DJ Shadow in any way during the gig which was a good point (although I think the band looked completely overwhelmed at the reception they got and this may have just been innocently overlooked) and two people thought it was going to be an actual DJ Shadow show but weren’t too worried about it not being when they found out...Interesting stuff…And 15-0 in definite favour of it being a great show.
I think overall, ‘Introducing’ did a great job of recreating the album. It’s as good a representation as you’ll ever get from people that didn’t record it!...It will be really interesting to see how this immensely talented collective develops.
(NB I’ve actually had a message from Matt since the show and he mentioned that the venue has pretty serious sound restrictions and this had tied their hands somewhat, It’s a real shame that they can have even the DJ’s playing after the live sets pump up the sound more, I’ve been noticing evidence of this sort of thing all over London lately, some legislation must have been sneaked through under the wire...Surely earplugs are widely available for those that need them!)"
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