Rudimental, Ella Eyre, und MJ Cole

Rudimental are originally a four-piece from East London’s Hackney, but in their live shows that core songwriting quartet is expanded with a drummer, trumpet player and three backing singers, including various special guest appearances (including Emile Sandé, Lianne Le Havas, among others, but these seem to vary from gig to gig). Their collectiveness and positivity are infectious right from the beginning, even before hitting the stage you can tell the anticipation among the crowd is through the roof. Their set is great to see live, the course their music has charted is like a journey through the last two or so decades of dance music, which could make for a ramshackle of odds and ends (there’s rave, drum’n’bass, transitional blasts of reggae and house, all kicked along with the cheerful and rowdy interjections of MC and hype-man DJ Locksmith), but is actually very cohesive, their performances are accomplished, and all this is compounded with their undeniable positive energy, charisma, and stage presence, which some would say isn’t typically thought of as ‘urban’, but it works! Rudimental’s shows, which are bringing in ever greater and diverse audiences given their continuous and meteoric rise, are like benign underground parties that nobody wants to miss out on. Highly recommended.

Ella Eyre is only 20 years old but she has already closed the BRIT awards, won a BRIT award and number one single with Rudimental thanks to the drum and bass stomper 'Waiting All Night' and she's yet to release her appropriately titled debut album, 'Feline'. I say appropriately titled, because Ella is a fiery, feisty and energetic musical lioness, you'll know what I mean if you've seen her live.
Watching her perform at Nottingham's Rescue Rooms venue earlier this year, Ella bounces across the stage, dressed in a skin tight cat suit, full of unwavering boundless energy.
She showcases her effortless vocals during E.P track 'Deeper' which has the crowd singing back every word of the infectious feel good chorus. Jumping around, she then launches into recent single 'If I Go' - an insanely catchy piece of credible pop music. Slowing the set down, Ella dedicates her track 'Home' to her mother, who is watching and smiling from the audience - a heartwarming moment.
Her whirlwind rise to household name status, was undoubtedly helped out by 'Waiting All Night', her collaboration with Brixton based electronic production quartet Rudimental, and gets an impressive outing on the night.
Since that show, Ella has performed at festivals on her her own, and with Rudimental. There's still chance to catch her at Sundown festival this weekend before the summer is over, or at a handful of UK headline tour dates throughout October!

MJ Cole's live sound was super groovy from the first beat of his first song to the end of the set. It was actually intelligent, beautiful, and dance-oriented the whole time. "Crazy Love" opened the set, which was an incredible song that mixed cool jazz and hip hop with soul and electronic.

The drum beats dipped and rose, and stacked up on top of each other, and created an expansive world of changing drum beats and dynamics. The songs never lost energy because of the brilliant drum patterns, but one thing that really made MJ Cole stand out was the use of samples and live instruments in conjunction with each other. This gave the songs an artificial, and organic sound that made the music so much more deep and full. The track "Sincere" opened up with some cool sounding reversed piano and bleeping synths.

The music actually sounded a lot like some popular genres of today, like chillwave and dubstep. MJ Cole was very ahead of their time, and was actually able to create some ridiculously beautiful tunes. This band really hit me on a raw level with its fanciness, but really struck a chord in my soul with it's beautiful samples, and atmospheres.