Review: Slamboree, Marble Factory

I used to love the Chinese State Circus when it had a live band – four musicians with about forty strange-looking instruments who played a continuous exotic soundtrack throughout the show. Watching Slamboree (who are indeed a visual spectacle) gave me a flashback to that experience with the difference being that in Slamboree’s remix of things the music is meant to be centre stage and the circus antics come as performance embellishments. Or are they? This was thumping dance music driving post-Steampunk cabaret burlesquery like The Cramps discovering hip-hop at Arcadia via the reanimated shadows of Prodigy and Rage.

Gramski in hip-hoperatic flow

Despite being shrouded in stage smoke it was clear that tonight’s warm-up act Ghetto Funk Allstars was, in fact, one DJ with a laptop and a fondness for old-school drum’n’bass. Having come in from the fancily dressed throng in the daylight outside I was still adjusting to that when he slipped away, the smoke cleared and MC/poet Gramski gave us a short set of hip-hoperatics, lyrics squeezed onto tunes from Mozart and Bizet reflecting that the former’s Figaro may actually have been the godfather of rap.

Kathika Rabbit (and wig)

It was a nicely unexpected bridge towards what would follow as he handed over to Slamboree front woman Kathika Rabbit’s imposing figure, spotlit in leatherette burlesque gear beneath a ginormous Marie Antoinette wig. She was the cue for the circus to begin, with a wall of sound impressively whipped up by producer/guitarist Mike Freear and relentless drummer Charlie Stirzaker, a crew of minimally clad women dancers thronging her and sundry post-apocalyptic male denizens appearing through billowing smoke and a battering of light effects.

Heavy Metal Pete in restraint

From that point on the stage was alive with an ever-changing series of scenarios more or less linked to the songs from the band’s debut album The Long Game. There was psycho-punk Heavy Metal Pete who variously appeared in chains (from which he escaped), marauded around with a power drill and ultimately did the ‘passing himself through a tennis racket’ trick including dislocating his shoulder and flopping an arm around with stomach-churning fluidity. The dancing crew re-emerged collectively as stone-faced geishas, scantily clad guerillas and retro Pans People complete with a Bucks Fizz style velcro rip-off moment, while individually they enacted Apache dancing, belly dancing and a wrestling match.

Mike Freear juggles guitar and electronics

But what of the music? Well it was series of nicely crafted dance tunes with appropriate dollops of drops and breaks and nods to Grime, Trap, and Drum’&’Bass, though as ever with live rapping the faster numbers lost their lyrical clarity in the mist. Sometime trombonist and MC Joe Rogers’ feature number Reasons Why I Dance was a nice tribute to Ian Dury in its grimy way, while for the wrestling match Ms Rabbit delivered a scathing commentary in an Alice Russell style – ‘They want to be famous, but they don’t know what for”. Swapping between laptop, keyboard and guitar Mike Freear kept a rich range of tones characterising things and drummer Charlie’s impeccable timing never flagged.

Slamboree – the musical crew

All in all it was a fine show, therefore, compelling to watch and just the kind of thing you hope to find in a festival field at two in the morning … so it was once again disorientating to come out and find that it was still twilight and Friday night was only just beginning.