THE SPATIAL AKA Orchestra – Brighton Dome March 5
FEW GIGS promise a "journey through space and time, going backwards and forwards, and deep within the consciousness" but very very few gigs are a special and a singular as the show put on by Jerry Dammers.
The former creative mainstay of the Specials and founder of Two-Tone records has been fairly quiet in recent decades but last year he was prodded into action by a reunion tour of his former bandmates, a tour from which he was controversially excluded.
His latest show, a homage to cult American jazz composer and band leader Sun Ra and reintrepretation of some of his own tunes, is a daring and hugely impressive achievement and a vindication of Dammer's determination to create something different, rather than just rehash former glories.
Huge amounts of goodwill greeted Dammers from the moment he walked out onto the bizarrely decorated stage (space cruisers and mannequins in space suits and eighties pop-costumes).
"You ain't heard anything yet." He deadpanned in his familiar nasal Coventry accent.
He took his position amongst a massive nest of keyboards and synths (the like of which not seen since Jean Michel Jarre) and fired up some absurdly fast squelching beats.
Then came the entrance of a singer, complete with a shining gold sun mask, who began chanting the introduction of a piece by French avant-garde composer Eric Sartie.
The 18-piece band, dressed in a style best described as Ancient Egyptian party-wear, shuffled on and blasted into life in a blaze of brass and bass.
Within minutes the music built up into an incredible wall of sound and an intensity which was maintained for two-and-a-half hours and beyond.
The band were so tight it sounded like they've been playing together since the Pharohs were in charge, and conjured up an amazing, huge sound, as Dammers arrangements of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and Moon Dog, loped effortlessly between jazz, reggae, dub, and so much more.
Three Specials songs were given glorious 2010 revamps, which retained the basic and much-loved tunes but were rebooted into fearsome new territority.
They retained Rocksteady rhythms and echoes of ska but the new versions were brooding and darker than their Two-Tone forebears, slower, deeper and more insistent.
Dammer's new take on Ghost Town was a majestic and humbling beast, or as my friend suggested a "groove juggernaut", full of menacing beats and a glorious barrage of horns
The show ended with the band jamming in the foyer of the Dome surrounded by hundreds of extremely happy punters.
Given the recent animosity surrounding Dammers and the Specials, it was great to see him in amongst it all, loving the moment, and hopefully energised and inspired enough to write some material.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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