Review: Tankus the Henge, The Fleece – ‘Reminiscent of those sun baked, cider fuelled, blissful summer days’

It feels as though Festival Season is a long way away. Just because Glastonbury sold out in moments (despite the eye watering cost) and so many others seem to be luring the early birds, a summer of bouncing around in fields is still a distant dream.

Fortunately, Tankus the Henge and Cable Street Collective turned up at The Fleece to remind us of those sun baked, cider fuelled, blissful summer days.

The Cable Street Collective are exactly what you want a support band to be, but they so rarely are. They’re a band that genuinely warm up the crowd; get shoulders dipping, feet moving and hands clapping. They are a blast of pure sunshine, a funk/soul/highlife tornado and the perfect party band.

They would be brilliant if we’re just for the You-can-call-me-Al horn section and staccato guitar stutterings but they have a serious secret weapon. Fiona Jane has an incredible pop soul voice. It has power and sass, a bit like Kate Nash if she could really, really sing. She is a magnetic stage presence but, astonishingly, is only the second-best front person on the stage this evening.

Tankus the Henge start slowly. They are a lazily uncoiling snake, the ripple on a windblown fairground tent. Suzy Sidewinder unfurls sleazily, only hinting at what is to come.

Full of the menace of a New Orleans bordello, the strut of a sleepy cat. Before you know it, they are off and running – a psych rock, 70s funk, high octane jazz, 7-piece dancing machine.

By the time Orange is the New Black romps in to view the 3-part horn section has honed their slow-motion James Bond moves and their Blues Brothers syncopated finger clicks. They are also stirring up an absolute crescendo of noise.

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If this is jazz then it’s not the chin-strokey, skronking and parping type. This is the sort of jazz that you’d want to find leaping out of the French Quarter.  The sort of jazz that would shake you down, stand you up and leave you slumped, exhausted in a corner.

Last Night in New Orleans gives these three incredible musicians (as well as bass, piano, drums and guitar) the perfect home. A raucous, roiling, swampy stew of noise capturing the vitality and vivacity of the birthplace of jazz but with a deliciously funky underbelly. It is pure voodoo.

There are moments when frontman Jaz Delorean looks as though he can barely believe the musical carnage that is being wrought around him. His eyes gleam and a wicked grin spreads across his face as he pounds out barrelhouse piano licks that keep pace with the high wire trapeze act that is the sax, trombone and tenor sax.

In reality Tankus the Henge feels like Delorean’s band. You can barely keep your eyes off of him as he leaps over the top of his piano or tilts it at a crazy angle whilst pummeling the keys. He is a hopped up, louche lounge lizard, ending the evening shirtless, drenched in sweat.

When he flips open the top of his piano, sending a plume of smoke billowing across the stage his faithful audience are delighted – this is a well-worn crowd pleaser, saved for late in the set, perfectly timed.

Recurring Dream, God, Oil, Money and Fayaway are delirious and dazzling, thumping at the ceiling to be allowed to go screaming off into the night. Almost literally the roof is raised as hundreds of heads bob and bounce in unison.

By the time You Can Do Anything arrives The Fleece is in tatters. This positive, affirmative anthem is bellowed back to the stage by every voice in the place. It’s a song that should be available on prescription to banish the winter blues.

Although Tankus the Henge are not from Bristol they feel, curiously, like a very “Bristol Band”. They are fiercely independent, wilfully eclectic, wildly danceable and funky as all hell. Honestly, you’d love them.

Main photo: Gavin McNamara

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