This billing was a fitting end to a tremendous month of gigs at the 229 as part of the January Blues Festival put together by AGMP and sponsored by Blues In Britain magazine. Reading some of the reviews of this and other shows by the fabulously titled Fantastic Negrito you might be forgiven in thinking that the Second Coming had miraculously occurred in your local venue. The gush of breathless enthusiasm by some reviewers is quite exhausting, especially when it seems to be applied equally to all and sundry without much discrimination. If one was of a suspicious nature it might almost seem that AI had been used to plough the depths of hyperbole. To quote the great man himself from one of the numbers played on the night, it would be advisable for some to “take that bullshit and turn it into good shit”.

Having said that, it was a spectacularly entertaining evening! The artist (who would be the worst nightmare for commentators if he had opted for a sports rather than a musical career and used his real name, Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz, “X” for short) describes his music as “black roots music for everyone". His live sound is a genre breaking mash up of riffing Blues and Funk, with a side helping of Soul, presented in the most theatrical and energetic manner possible by the charismatic musician. It’s all showbiz really but the frontman seemed to live out every song, each one delivered with a passionate vigour as he roamed the stage creating fantastic shapes for photographers like myself (it was a surprise that the camera didn’t overheat with the friction from the repeated snapping as the artist moved in and out of the available light onstage), dropping to his knees, leaning over the foldback speakers in anguish as if hit by a sniper, with or without his guitar, which was used more as a stage prop than as an integral part of the sound. Most of the heavy lifting on the guitar parts was provided by a young, almost expressionless, guitarist stage left, who occasionally switched to an electric mandolin, and who’s amp was the loudest by far. The whole band were on the youthful side, apart from his musical director on keys in the gloom at the back of the stage, and they provided a musically articulate backing for the complex arrangements of many of the excellent songs.

His songs cover contemporary issues and controversial themes that most Blues adjacent artists shy well away from. His songs are really good musically but also have a depth and resonance that bear repeated listening. The set list was long (it’s included in the photos below) and well worth exploring for anyone unfamiliar with his work. By the end of the set he had, as football commentators say in classic, nonsensical cliché, “left nothing on the pitch”; he’d given it everything and as well as the physical energy expended, he looked emotionally drained. It obviously helps to have something meaningful to sing about. This was the sort of rare performance that will stick out in the memory.

The audience had been put in a good mood before Fantastic Negrito came on by the almost hypnotically, chugging rhythms of The Too Bad Jims, a US/UK trio comprising Little Victor, Son Jack Jnr and Nick Simonon (brother of the Clash bassist, for what that’s worth). They play what they describe as North Mississippi Hill Country Blues. In their hands this consists of two guitarists playing similar but complimentary rhythmic grooves, mainly riffing those fat sounds down the bottom end of the guitar, that seemingly don’t follow the traditional twelve bar route. The guitars lock into a pattern with a rootsy series of licks at the beginning of each song, pull back onto the bass strings when their dual vocals start (singing in the same key) and then kick back in with the repetitive riff between verses; variation is provided by slide guitar solo licks. I’ve seen the band play the same set pretty much several times over the last year or so and their numbers like ‘Miss Maybelle’, ‘Skinny Woman’, ‘Over The Hill’, ‘Going Down South’, ‘Peaches’, ‘Long Haired Doney’ and ‘44 Pistol’, which they rattled through on the night, have really grown on me. A good start to what turned into a great night of music.

Review, photos and video: Simon Green