[acid-jazz] Grand Central Birthday party review

From: Jon Freer (jon-freer_at_excite.com)
Date: 2005-04-04 00:06:17

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    Event Review: Grand Central Records 10th Birthday Party, Sunday 20th March 2005 at The Ritz, Manchester.

    Ten years is a hell of a long time in this fickle world, especially at a time when the music industry and specifically the retail sector is mutating at an alarming rate. The achievement is especially impressive when one looks at where this imprint came from, a label that formed the icing on the cake of Mark Rae’s revolutionary blunted beat empire. The Grand Central of today is a world away from Mark Rae’s original pale bboy satisfying imprint, that was centred around head nodding hip hoperatives, souled up and jazzied out cuts. Sure, there’s some of that type of stuff being released by the label currently, but today’s key artists represent a much broader musical spectrum. This birthday soiree, the second of two celebratory affairs, gave some sort of an indication of what is currently pushing Mark’s creative buttons.

    A live showcase as opposed to a clubby type affair, usual label suspects made up the majority of the line-up at this event, which took place at the high ceilinged and springy floored Ritz venue. The ever-smiling and occasionally incomprehensible Kwasi compered, guiding the audience in a jovial manner through live sets from Fingathing, Jon Kernnedy, QNC (known as Q-Ball & Curt Cazal until recently) and DJ ventures from Boca 45 and Mark Rae himself, who was ably assisted by stellar vocal performers, Veba and Pete Simpson. Boca’s turntable activity was slotted in between the live performances and his bitesize sets were full of funky hits and party beats, including Amerie’s magical “One Thing”. Jon Kennedy’s percussively weighted compositions sounded more evenly balanced on stage, with the vocals and various instruments springing off the page a little easier than they do on record. QNC’s matter of fact rapping rode the bassy grooves stylishly, as they tore through tracks lik!
     e the submitting “Anything You Want”. Fingathing did their usual fat bass meets turntable dynamism show, where the crowd were left wondering how they manage to get the impressive sounds they do from such an odd combination of sonic devices. Mark Rae brought proceedings to a close with a set dominated by his own material, which was fair enough, considering the occasion.

    Disappointingly, the atmosphere was a little reserved at this heftily priced party. There was an impressively sized crowd inside the balcony-ed venue, but if the crowd were blown away by what they were hearing and seeing, in general, they didn’t make their feelings known. Tellingly, Mark Rae was the one who seemed most captivated by Q&C’s performance, jumping and jiving to their every word. The loftiness of the venue, the fact that this event was oddly on a Sunday with some of the crowd already partied out from earlier weekend excesses and perhaps even the predictability of the line-up probably contributed to the less than electric atmosphere. An appearance by a the non-uk based vocal chanteuses, the angelic Niko and Kate Rogers, or maybe a live unveiling of new artists, the thoughtful Broadway Project, could have given the night a little more sparkle. As it was, those on show entertained, but the evening left you craving for what could have been…

    Jon Freer(jon.freer_at_gmail.com)
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