The Jazz Weekend

On a less ranty note - I forgot to say that the Jazz weekend was only savage

The weekend started off with a great double header on the Friday night

This guy called Avishai Cohen who was insane - lets just say the guy reeeeallly loves his double bass. At one stage I actually thought he was licking it - seriously! The headline act were EST. This was my third time seeing them live - the 2 previous times were amzing - once in the Everyman and once in Vicar St surrounded by tealights cause of a power cut. This time round they were a lot more mellow to begin. The first 4 or 5 songs were quite ponderous which isn't necessarily a bad thing but the heat and lack of air conditioning in the gods in the Everyman wasn't helping and we were nearly dozing off. Having said that the second half of the set was an absolute stormer but overall the feen Cohen got my vote - his drummer was about 12 and words escape me for how good he was.

Saturday night was probably my gig of the weekend - jazz me bollix - managed to get a ticket for the Redneck Manifesto in the Liquid Lounge above Clancys. Never been there before but me bruvva who knows these things tells me they've been putting some pretty decent nights on there. The place was absolutely mental. Naturally the gig sold out but what was really strange was the distinct lack of a stage! We were stuck about 10 rows back so could see fuck all but it looked like the entire crowd were pretty much standing/jumping/hopping on top of Richie and the lads.

As for the gig - I've seen these lads plenty of times and I don't think I've ever seen them do a bad gig. I know that sounds exaggerated but given that it's pretty much entirely instrument based apart its amazing to see the energy they bring to the place - the crowd are always up for it and while they might be pushing it to get another album, the set they've crafted essentially amounts to an incredibly tight best of selection - fuckin amazing!

The Sunday was supposed to be music free but the bruvva got me tickets for the Sunday afternoon in the Everyman - this was "proper" jazz which to be honest I find a bit inaccessible. First up was a guy called Don Byron who played saxophone and clarinet with his trio. This guy was actually pretty cool - he was so laid back he was nearly vertical! Here you have a guy all the way from the Bonx and he's wearing a shaggin Man Utd shirt! It was just nice to see someone who was so genuinely into the music, he was roaring on the drummer during his solos and his banter with the crowd, especially about him "being the only person to give props to Dick Fosbury" was hilarious

The main act were a bit too serious for my liking - they were called the Miroslav Vitous Quartet - some of the stuff that they did was enjoyable, looping samples from orchestras over their own notes and there were parts where they reminded me a lot of the Cinematic Orchestra but overall it was too much like proper jazz with long meandering solos that i felt went nowhere - meh I'm probably not cultured enough!

Here's the Rednecks with the only mighty We Still Got It - the video is quality!