The Bamboos
Corner Hotel
June 14, 2008
A combination of well-honed musical talent, spiffy dress sense, and a big-band knack for engaging performance makes Melbourne deep-funk collective the Bamboos a charming live choice. I caught them at the Golden Plains festival earlier this year and was completely blown away, so when I heard they were playing a home-town show at the Corner Hotel, I snatched up tickets quick.
The eight-piece hit the adorably dingy Corner band room at about 11:30pm, and were warmly received by a grogged-up, loose, sold out crowd. The stage was neatly framed: three-piece horn section to the left; drums, bass and Hammond organ to the right; and front-man Lance Ferguson centred cooly with his guitar. Led by the band’s extraordinarily gifted drummer, the group launched into the apt opener The Bamboos Theme – a fast-pace instrumental peppered with flute solos which got excited feet pounding.
They pumped out another instrumental, before ushering vocalist Kylie Auldist onto the stage to the slower, thicker grooves of My Baby’s Cheating. Auldist played the part of sexy soulstress perfectly, belting out a seamless mix of soul, ballad and funk, and confidently flirting with her adoring crowd – though your mind couldn’t help but be removed from exotic New York funk clubs as she blurted out a couple of ‘youse’ and ‘thanks heaps’s through a thick Aussie accent. It added a nice local edge.
The show took a deeper, chilled out turn as Auldist introduced a female back-up vocalist to help the band traverse some of the more soulful ditties, and allowing Auldist to demonstrate the full scope of her own immense, powerfully penetrating voice. To an ongoing backdrop of cheers and applause, as she skilfully hit the highs and lows of tunes lifted from previous Bamboos releases and her new collaborative debut album, The Bamboos Present Kylie Auldist: Just Say.
From the live sounds of it, Just Say marks a significant shift for the band. While it rode to prominence on the back of catchy instrumentals with guest vocalists thrown in here-and-there, the full-time female vocals on this record has led to a fuller, more soulful sound. It’s slower, bigger and appears more complete, and is nicely suited to live performance.
Auldist left the stage to roaring ovation, as the band tied up the first part of the show with some up-beat funk. At around the gigs’s 40 minute mark the boys said a quick thanks and walked off stage – I’m not sure if it was a short intermission or a premature bid for an encore cheer, but it was clear they’d be back.
They returned for another half-hour, and promptly rebuilt momentum with some blistering instrumentals. They peaked with a stunningly energetic extended drum solo that saw the audience shift from excitement, to awe, to dazzle. When the rest of the band met the beat and kicked back in, the entire crowd burst into uncontrollable, dancing rapture – an ecstatic sea of bopping and gyration. It was undoubtedly the highlight.
The Bamboos were finally joined by a group of dancers named ‘the Bambettes’, who packed out the stage and helped the band ram the lively show home to some fun party-funk tunes. The extended group was bid a very warm goodbye from the loving home crowd, successfully wrapping up this round of launch shows. Watch this space for more Bamboos news.
