Music / Review
Review: Siren, Lloyd’s Amphitheatre – ‘Mashing dub vocals and skippy bassline house, they shook the floor’
As proclaimed on their website, Groove Armada’s final tour celebrating 25 years of live performances commenced in April with a date at Motion. This was clearly not to be the end, the allure of playing at Bristol’s Amphitheatre on the harbourside obviously was too much of a temptation for them to turn down. As such, fans of the duo had one last chance for a get down.
You could hear a laid-back groove like Whatever Whenever on a TV programme or literally see them perform a house track like Love Sweet Sound live in Ibiza, wherever their presence, they bring energy, soul and colour.
The amphitheatre has for a good number of years been a music venue but it really seems to have come into its own in recent years with a stellar line-ups and top-level production values, all to the iconic backdrop of Bristol’s harbour. Like the colours of the iconic terrace Redcliffe parade, Groove Armada literally brought a whole fleet of musical armoury to launch a sonic assault on Bristol.
is needed now More than ever
On the main stage Scarlett O’Malley reminded the crowd of their house roots with an eclectic set featuring a stack of 90’s dance anthems. From looking at the crowd you could see that this activated the groove button and the party was started. Scarlett treated us to Robin S’ Show me Love, Basement Jaxx’s Red Alert and Livin Joy’s Dreamer amongst many other hits.
Adopted West Country star Huey Morgan was a big draw for many after his chart topping fame with band The Fun Lovin Criminals and more recent musical exploits with BBC Radio residency. Huey took the decks and gave us a straight up reminder of the plethora of U.S influence on dance music.
Former frontman of Fun Lovin Criminals took to the stage. Credit: Colin Moody
The journey went through Hip Hop, RnB , Soul to Disco. From Notorious B.I.G’s Hypnotize to Arrested Development’s Everyday People, from Faith Evans to Prince & The Revolution’s. By this point the crowd had swelled to near full and even the M-shed cranes were grooving their rusty joints to the lesson in groove.
Over in on the second stage hosted by Saffron Records we received another dance music lesson from Fly Fox with pumping house, techno and old skools classics blended together with ease. From all out classic Mr Fingers Can You Feel It to the UK breakbeat Piano anthem Awesome 3’s Don’t Go. The crowd really enjoyed this as an alternative to the older sounds on the main stage.
With a nod to 25 years of the Fat of the Land by The Prodigy we had the sample madness of Charly, then the hedonistic Blue Monday by New Order. In this area there was a good range of food and drink on offer with dedicated beer and rum bars and a nice selection of independent food from around the world.
As the sun went down the lights of the Groove Armada show welcomed us and we were teased with a brief medley of their tracks, an unusual but interesting approach to starting off a gig but it had the desired effect of filling the dancefloor.
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The band assembled on stage and hit us with the brash acid synth lines and electro break dance of The Girls Say then flipped the vibe for the electro indie of Look me In The Eye Sister with vocal sung by Saint Saviour.
Back to classic dancefloor sounds for the heads, we had a mashup of Superstylin with Fogma and then further into mashup territory with the feel-good chill beats of My Friend blended into stone cold house classic. All this unpredictability kept the crowd on their toes and throwing us off our senses we came back to an electro-indie collab when we were joined on stage by singer Saint Saviour performing Paper Romance.
Bringing things down a notch or two some beautiful piano playing got us ready for Sunshine Anderson’s Easy. Big beat classic I See You Baby brought us back up to more energetic heights with live guitar playing the lead lines. Electro shuffler Move Along came in two parts; a wide-open breakdown made us feel like it was finished to then start up again for more bassline tweaking indulgence.
The duo dominated the stage on Friday night. Credit Colin Moody
Holiday chill out anthem By The River, arguably one of their most famous tracks and heavily featured on TV was announced with their signature live trombone, an arm around friends moment ensued. Finally, we got what we came for, their fail-safe dancefloor track Superstylin, itself subject to many bootlegs and cheeky samples saw us off in true Groove Armada style.
Mashing dub vocals and skippy baseline house, this shook the floor and ended a memorable night. Groove Armada proved their rightful place as not only one of dance music’s true global greats but also as one of the UK’s most accomplished and innovative acts.
Main photo: Colin Moody
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