Institute of Contemporary Arts

DAY SEVEN: Beardy Man, Mutya and Groove Armada

Date: 7 July 2007

Stush singing Get Down with Groove Armada

If you’ve never seen the sight of one man create a whole song by himself – lyrics, beats, melody, bass (the whole song), then you haven’t seen Beardy Man do his thing. I arrived to the sound of Nina Simone’s Feeling Good flooding from the theatre doors, so in I hopped, expecting to see a DJ, a band, or some kind of collective; but no. There he was, just one little guy, (yes, with mini beard), creating the whole soundscape by himself. The first part of his set consisted of a medley of hip hop, pop and dance tracks mixed together so seamlessly I awarded him Master of Vocal DJs directly (if such a thing exists). After this, Mr. Beardy introduced the ‘live loop’, an added tool that allows him to repeat sounds he has just recorded for as little or as long as he’d like. It’s an exciting ingredient, but no doubt increases the complexity of his game, and still he felt brave enough to as ask the audience for requests. Someone may have been trying to catch him out when they cried out for ‘classical!’, but Beardy Man cannot be stumped. Off he went into a ‘classical’ section, creating his own ballroom two-step with a gentle beat, and a melody with a noise that sounded something like a trumpet. Saying exactly what the audience were feeling, Beardy then shouted ‘ And it’s nice!’ before sending his sound into a new dimension; a techno beat arrived and we were back in the dance with MC loops and the whole works. To make matters even more impressive, when Beardy needed to talk to the soundman about a technical issue, he did so without having to stop or slow down a thing. He integrated the lines ‘Mr. Soundman…turn my monitor down’ (taking the tune from the 50’s Mr. Sandman original) into his own beat, before slipping back into a new drum and bass section with the words,  ‘It’s feeding back, it’s feeding back, it’s feeding back and back....’ WOW.
 
When he finished with the sound of everything being scratched into oblivion, I didn’t want it to end, so I went backstage to chase after the man himself. I noted that nothing can get too serious or negative with this one, and his jolly exuberance is definitely one of the reasons he had the audience totally absorbed just moments before. We end up giggling over a miscommunication regarding his ‘lifelong’ career. Clearly he can’t have been beat-boxing ‘since (he) was a baby’, but it momentarily leaves us both with the vision of him popping out at birth, uber cool, scratching records and saying ‘word up’. It was funny, I promise...

Anyway, no sooner had I said hello to Beardy Man, I was off to follow the sound of some serious vocals from back in the theatre. I find MUTYA BUENA in ‘da’ ICA house, singing an array of tracks from her new album. For those of you who don’t know, Mutya used to be in the Sugababes, but she’s now singing to her own tunes (ok, with a couple of producers and covers thrown in) and it all sounds super slick. We weren’t going to hear the Groove Armada produced Song 4 Mutya till later, but the audience had a chance to listen to That’s OK, Just a Little Bit and her sexy R&B take on the Kooks’ Naïve.

Mutya looked very at home on stage, the blue Hollywood strip lights for Groove Armada giving that touch of glamour so suited to her act. Wearing a tight golden silk jacket, with a ‘done’ hair ‘do’, bling-bling jewellery, extremely long nails and some serious make up, this lady was about good old fashioned entertainment with STYLE (ing). I could tell maintenance is required for both her and her entourage, which included two guitarists, two sexy backing vocalists, a drummer and a pianist by the way. This girl means business with her strong team, strong voice and strong attitude. She finished with Real Girl, a cover of Lenny Kravitz’s It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over, and whether a fan or not, people were definitely moving to this one.

But nothing could prepare anybody for the joy that was the hour of Groove Armada headlining heaven. Within the intimate walls of the ICA theatre, the crowd got to enjoy music from the famous Andy Cato and Tom Findley and no corners were cut for this cozy show. True to their name, the Armada de Groove brought with them a fleet of every possible ingredient to make this gig a treat, the impact of which felt even greater in the 350 capacity theatre. On the lights and visuals side of things, there were brilliant blue strip lights placed around the stage, and a huge screen of live visual projections hung at the back. The bionic man was a particularly interesting touch and at one stage the drummer almost morphed into the digital figure behind him. On the music side of things, the repertoire and performances were, put simply, amazing. Groove Armada’s electric hard house sound with its range of other elements is renowned for being great as a live show, and this was no exception. To get everybody super excited before the band hit the stage, the audience listened to the epic sounding rhythm sections of Love Sweet Sound, The Girls Say and Chicago while a bright light flashed out of the hidden pit area. This warning light kept going when Andy Cato took to the stage and started things off with The Things That We Could Share and Save my Soul from the new album. Live performances from the three guest MC/vocalists (including MC Mad and Stush), gave softer tracks like My Friend, Easy and Sound Boy Rock a warmth and personality perfect for this smaller setting, and louder, harder tracks like The Girls Say and Love Sweet Sound the energy and action needed to get the people jumping. Highlights for the evening included Stush doing GET DOWN. This lady knows how to get the audience jumping with her high energy power performances and this track, well known to fans and anyone half interested in music, had the audience going wild. Maya’s Song 4 Mutya was of course a success as were basically all the songs! However, if I had to pick my favourite moment from the whole night, it would have to be the super cool, super extended version of Superstylin' with Andy Cato on the trumpet. This moment has stuck in my mind as the epitome of the evening; jumping happy people going crazy on the dance floor to some 'phat' tunes.

Can we go again please?

Torie Speyer