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Gig review
Curious Generation Presents:
Gabriella Cilmi, Shaun Anthony, SugaRush Beat Company
Soho Revue Bar – 29 January 2008
The crowded – never packed – Soho Revue Bar, lit low in warm reds and blues, has an atmosphere of affected nonchalance, of people trying to prove they have nothing to prove. We first took in Gabriella Cilmi, whose two clusters of balloons still stand on either side of the stage, deep blue with her logo printed on them in white.
She’s the new face of a Boots advertising campaign, but fortunately her show wasn’t about appearances. Instead, she bobbed around a little space right in the centre of the stage, left hand gesticulating rigidly, planting notes in gobs into the microphone. She sounds a lot like Amy Winehouse, but her lyrics are a little less brazen and there’s a little added folk. The set, checking in at six songs, was over too soon. Her career, it seems, won’t be – this was an enjoyable performance from an artist on an upward trajectory.
And now we’ve come to the finale. SugaRush Beat Company, comprised of Rahsaan Patterson, Ida Corr (both of whom have very successful solo careers), Jarrad ‘Jaz’ Rogers, Tony ‘the muse’, and a fifth member who was playing with the Beat Co. on Tuesday but is not listed in the band’s biography, is a group who know how to handle a stage. Patterson and Corr have a presence so large they’ve filled the Bar and, for the first, time, there is a general consensus of head bobbing and toe tapping.
The Beat Co. are an unlikely group, representing four different countries (everywhere from the US to Denmark) and easily as many musical genres. It’s a weirder Michael Jackson (only in terms of sound), a more substantial techno outfit, and a jazz band gone space age, all candy coated yet somehow delivered with humanity. It’s enough to keep you humming for a couple days afterwards.
Still, the Beat Co. is a side project for the majority of its members, a creative outlet and enormous fun, which unfortunately isn’t the best circumstances under which to create great music – several tracks don’t live up to potential due to a botched transition or a hesitant conclusion or some other lapse in the kind of meticulous song-writing present only when the stakes are higher. That said, they are categorically a good time.
The same cannot be said for Shaun Anthony, who filled the slot between Cilmi and the Beat Co. His slimy set featured a pilfering of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On in a cover that was more like poorly executed plagiarism. Fortunately, he was not granted the final word, and SugaRush Beat Company were able to send us home smiling.
– Kiernan Maletsky
