Saturday 2nd May 2009 @ Fiddlers, Bristol
With Support From: Imperial Leisure

‘These guys hit certain notes and chords and it just gets you, just hits you right here…’ said the man patting his chest, slightly drunk and yelling at me, over the din of the Fiddlers crowd. The club was full to the brim and, drunk or not, he was right. The combination of crowd and music meant I was dangerously close to becoming overwhelmed, in a good way!

Youngblood Brass Band are from Wisconsin. They’re a progressive, raw, acoustic group and have released three albums of hip-hop and riot jazz with a bit of samba thrown in. No synths, no artificial sounds, just brass and percussion. This kind of acoustic dedication makes for a perfect live performance as there is no sound you’ve heard on the album, that the band couldn’t create right before your eyes.

Youngblood’s are a live performance force. They don’t just play music for you, they push it into you. Warm up act, Imperial Leisure, a local ska band, did their fair share of crowd frenzying an hour before the Youngbloods took to the stage. In fact, a mosh-pit had emerged the instant they started their first song, but it was the brass the crowd were gunning for.

Youngblood Brass Band didn’t disappoint; kicking off with Centre: Level: Roar, favourite and classic Culture: Envy: War and ending the set with my personal favourite, Brooklyn. Some tracks from Is That A Riot? were scattered throughout the set as well as a few newer or updated tracks. One particularly beautiful and epic solo from new saxophonist Zach Lucas was welcomed by the crowd as a chance to stop jumping around and simply appreciate his talent.

Band leader, Dave Skogen kept crowd interaction to a minimum, dropping in a few jokes here and there. At one point, as he told us which shops the album was available in but then he seemed to have a change of heart and said; ‘You know its pretty hard to find our album, record companies don’t seem to really like us, but hey, burn it from your friends, we don’t care!’ By then, Dave could have asked us all to stand on our heads for the rest of the show and I’m positive we would have, such is the power of the Youngblood Brass Band.

www.youngbloodbrassband.com

Agatha Knowles