CARNIVAL COLLECTIVE + KING LAGOON’S FLYING SWORDFISH BAND – THE HAUNT, BRIGHTON 26.04.19
Brighton is such a wonderfully vibrant multicultural city with its melting pot of sights, sounds and smells – it’s a joy to behold. One fine example of our diversity are the big party animals Carnival Collective.
The fluid procession of members have been successfully entertaining the crowd of Brighton & Hove and across the world for the past 25 years. Personnel may have come and gone during that period, but their raison d’être is to spread joy and happiness wherever they appear. It’s little wonder then, that they are regulars at festivals, parades and big stages throughout the land.
Such is their popularity, that the Carnival Collective recently beat off stiff competition in a public vote and won the right to perform at The Soundcrash Funk & Soul Weekender taking place in Brighton on 17th – 19th May. Read our announcement about that HERE and purchase you tickets for the event HERE.
I was well aware that this evening’s event at The Haunt in Pool Valley, Brighton would almost certainly be a tightly squeezed affair as their previous appearance at the venue last November had sold out – (read our review HERE).
Prior to the Carnival Collective filling the stage this evening, and I really mean filling the stage, the PA system was blurting out the dance classic ‘Show Me Love’ by Robin S, in order to get the jam packed crowd right in the mood.
The ensemble took to The Haunt’s stage and including their conductor I counted at least 27 members, however I understand that it can grow up to a colossal 35 members.
During their performance the harmonious flowing unit offered up their unique blend of live drum and bass, reggae and jungle as well as marching band and swing. Fluidly operating across the many genres, the passion of its members keeps its pulse beating strong. There’s an amalgam of a trio of ladies exhaling beautiful vocal harmonies juxtapositioned with a guy in a red cap who boasted his rapping skills in four languages.
The performance opened with ‘Jump On’ which certainly throws down the rappy r’n’b gauntlet. The set offered Samba rhythms, Brazilian drums, with a phat horn section and dirty bass-lines all professionally delivered by the well rehearsed happy gang. It was certainly guaranteed to get any feet tapping and bodies jigging around the venue.
It was as I had assumed a packed venue, both downstairs and upstairs and the Carnival Collective were guaranteed to blow the crowd away – these guys ‘ave riddim.
A popular tune on the night was ‘Swing’ which offers up that nostalgic 1950’s style, but with their own twist in order to bring it up to date. Nine reasonably lengthy tunes in and it was time to call it a day. The crowd weren’t having any of it and the ensemble launched into their take of Dawn Penn’s 1994 rocksteady hit ‘You Don’t Love Me (No No No)’.
Carnival Collective – it does what it says on the tin!
Carnival Collective setlist reads:
‘Jump On’, ‘Green & Yellow’, ‘Cisco’, ‘Druid Fluid’, ‘El Forastero’, ‘Pactris’, ‘Suerte’, ‘Swing’, ‘Tru Playaz’ (encore) ‘You Don’t Love Me (No No No)’.
More information on the Carnival Collective can be found on their website www.carnivalcollective.com
Support this evening came from the spectacularly named octet King Lagoon’s Flying Swordfish Band who are a Brighton based outfit, who report that they are from a parallel dimension.
These guys are seriously out there! There’s seven of them on stage and the eighth member is an Aroma Wizard positioned in front of the right hand speakers, where she gets busy with incense burners and sets light to balloons which burst and release coloured glitter onto the crowd.
This is essential to their act as in their universe smell is the same as sound. They are all clothed in white garments, covered by scarlet and gold capes and proudly boast tall golden triangular hats for that carnival tribal atmosphere.
They offer up a unique blend of funky Afro/Latin/Tropical/Psychedelic styles which is inspired by Hilife, chicha, west-African 70’s styles, Maracatu, Toureg music, samba batucada, Neu, Cuban styles, Yma sumac, Congotronics, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, and more, more, more…
To be honest, at times I wasn’t even sure if their trio of vocalists were singing in an actual language from this dimension or whether they had transported it over from theirs. But the one thing that I’m sure of is that they are a fun outfit that easily livened up the crowd and got a majority of them bopping along with them.
The highlight of their performance was near the end, when they set up a crowd surfer by literally throwing out an inflatable dinghy in the crowd and asking for a smaller person to climb aboard and the crowd would do the rest. It worked a treat.
The nearest sound I can compare these guys to is back in the day when John Peel and Andy Kershaw used to play sessions by the Bhundu Boys, who were a Zimbabwean band that played a mixture of chimurenga music with American rock and roll, disco, country, and pop influences. Their style became known as jit.
King Lagoon’s Flying Swordfish Band setlist reads:
‘Gold’, ‘100 000 Islands’, ‘Volcano Lagoon’, ‘La Molina’, ‘Ai Que Calor!’, ‘Gazelle’.
Learn more them HERE.
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