tUnE-yArDs aka Merrill Garbus likened playing live to going into battle in a recent interview, and there’s definitely something of the tribal in her face paint and musical arrangements. This intimate club gig is no battle ground though: in fact I defy you to find a warmer, less affected live performer at the moment. Garbus and her super-tight band are preparing for their support slot with Beirut at the much larger Shepherd’s Bush Empire tomorrow with a show that was only recently announced and sold out before you could say ‘hey, did you hear about the…?’.
Considering our hipsterville location, the audience are very much ‘with’ her and the band from the first song ‘My Country’. People are singing along and dancing (as far as the packed-in-like-sardines state will allow) and the tUnE-yArDs gang feed off the energy. The sound is an explosion of loop pedals, tribal rhythms, forays into hip hop and crazy sax solos. It’s so intricate but at the same time feels effortless as the two sax players interchange their noodling with gleefully bashing at baking trays. Meanwhile on the other side of the stage, the bassist funks out then occasionally hits up the percussion table which is laden with beer bottles. Everything’s an instrument at a tUnE-yArDs show, even the rider! All the while Merrill & co have wide smiles about their mugs, which is just as it should be.
Vocally, Garbus is a force to be reckoned with, at times she is fierce and rocky like on ‘Bizness’ and the sublime ‘Gangsta’ and then in others sultry and soulful – like the very sexy ‘Powa’ as she purrs “Baby bring me home to bed” then goes all Prince on us with high-pitched ‘oohs’ filling the room. Mad skills.
Her encore includes some solo material from her first record, Bird- Brains, with Merril playing Ukulele which is more fragile, whimsical, yet politicised lo-fi.
She thanks us for coming to a ‘semi secret’ show and given how much interest is surrounding tUnE-yArDs since the second album Who Kill came out do not expect to see Garbus & the gang performing somewhere as small as this on the next tour. There is something very special about tUnE-yArDs , she plans to return to the UK in February, get yourself along.