Review: Greg Phillips. Photos: Jason Rosewarne.
Much like LA’s iconic Hollywood Bowl, a gig at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl is always going to be more of an event than merely a concert. For a start, an artist has to possess a decent following to fill the (current) near 13,000 capacity. Plus the venue overflows with a legendary performance history from The Seekers and Billy Thorpe to AC/DC (when the perimeter fences were either not erected or pulled down by crowds) and most recently Herbie Hancock for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and French band Air’s celebration of their Moon Safari album.
On Wednesday night at the Bowl, the first day of 2025 it was hip hop’s time to shine and ring in the new year, with Grammy award-winning hip-hop visionaries and TV Host Jimmy Fallon’s house band, The Roots beginning their January east coast tour, the band’s first Australian headline tour in 12 years.
Commencing day one of the gig year was Melbourne’s own Nai Palm, lead singer of the internationally acclaimed (and perhaps under-appreciated at home) neo-soul, jazz/funk outfit Hiatus Kaiyote, who have been nominated for multiple Grammy and ARIA Awards. Palm herself, is a respected composer, instrumentalist, producer, vocalist, and poet who has developed a legion of loyal fans worldwide and many were there at the Bowl to cheer her on.
Opening with a stripped back ‘Get Sun’, a popular Hiatus Kaiyote song, Nai Palm proceeded to win the crowd over as they began streaming in for the main act, who were due on stage in a couple of hours time. Armed with her bejewelled white Jackson Randy Rhoads V guitar, it seemed appropriate to launch into a version of ‘Have You Ever Been (to Electric Ladyland)’. After completing her well-received set, Palm joined friends and fans in the audience to indulge in the musical feast that was to follow.
Talib Kweli is an American artist who first came to light due to his collaboration with iconic rapper Mos Def in the late nineties group Black Star for the respected Rawkus record label. Kweli has gone onto establish a successful career, working alongside high profile names like Kayne, Pharrell, Nelly and is known for expressing his passionate views on social issues affecting the black community.
Welcomed to the stage by his LA-based accomplice in rhyme, Hussain (Dj Spintelect) Abubekr, Talib immediately urged the crowd to raise their hands, as he began to lead them on an enthusiastic performance of tried and true hiphop call and response idioms. Whipping out ‘Old Schools Rules’ (DangerDoom ie Danger Mouse & super villain MF DOOM) early in the piece, Talib had the crowd makin’ some huge noise from the get-go. Merging into the Jaylib collab ‘Raw Shit’, it quickly became apparent that this Melbourne crowd knew their Talib shit well!
Digging deep into his catalogue, ‘Never Been In Love Before’ a softer groove from the 2009 album ‘The Beautiful Struggle’ brought the tempo down for a moment. Picking out a 12 yearly boy in the crowd and chatting to him, Talib told him he wasn’t going to gigs until he was much older and congratulated the kid’s parents for bringing him along. Paying tribute to the reggae genre with a few tracks, Kweli then busted out Bob Marley’s ’Is It Love’, inspiring the crowd to sing back loudly. Getting to the pointy end of his set, he roused the audience into a voluminous frenzy so that The Roots could hear the vibe backstage, before leading everyone in a mass singalong with ‘Get By’ from his Quality album, telling us all he’d see us in Sydney as he left the stage!
The imposing sight of The Roots’ ten musicians taking to the stage pointed to an impending massive sound and with the opening strains of the ‘The Pros’ from ‘Homegrown! The Beginner’s Guide to Understanding The Roots’, that hunch proved to be true. Featuring a horn section, drums (with the legendary Questlove), guitar, bass, electronic beats and two keyboard players, along with head MC Black Thought, this isn’t any stationary musical outfit, it’s an ever-moving, energy-inducing group of passionate music makers. The Pros blended straight into the funky ‘I Got My Mind Made Up’ and it became clear that this outfit is as tight and road-ready as you can get. As for the audience, forget it, they were already off the chain with joy.
With a Roland VK8 and Yamaha Montage on one side of the keyboard station and Korg Kronos and Yamaha Motif on the other, the band’s ample gear choices captured all the required sounds and added a fatness to the horn section. Meanwhile to the side, bassist Mark Kelley along with Questlove kept it all continuously in the pocket. Captain Kirk Douglas on Les Paul guitar mainly keeps the rhythm ticking along until his bust out, lead moment but more of that later, while multi-instrumentalist Stro Elliot provided electronic percussion beats and samples to the vast musical mix. However, none is more animated than brass player Tuba Gooding Jr., who constantly leaves his (former Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings) horn section mates Dave Guy and Ian Hendrickson-Smith alone to do their Stax thing while he literally runs around the stage with his enormous Sousaphone, often in a conga line with Douglas and Kelley. Collectively the band moves with ease from soul to funk and R&B to jazz, blues and of course hip hop rhythms. Versatile seems too simple a word to explain their immense improvisational talent.
‘Think Twice’, the Donald Byrd track took us to smoothsville. The ‘Change’/’Web’/’Dance Girl’ medley offered the full phat funk treatment with singer, rapper MC Black Thought in total control of proceedings, urging the audience to greater heights. The jamming between band members throughout the night was mesmerising, particularly a duel between keytar and sousaphone, which was insane.
A soulful, extended version of ‘You Got Me’ featuring guitarist Captain Kirk Douglas performing the Erykah Badu vocal parts had the audience swaying along to the song’s beautiful melody and singing back the chorus, acknowledged by Black Thought with a simple “Gratitude”. However, this was really Douglas’ moment as he stepped into the spotlight to play one of the most heartfelt guitar solos I’ve heard in a long time. A fun few bars of “My Favourite Things” (Sound of Music movie) from the band stoked the fire further, ending with Douglas, centre stage on his knees, delivering his finest Prince-style solo licks. The execution of this track was worth the price of admission alone.
Without taking a breath the band launched into Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’, then blending seamlessly into a fabulous dub reggae groove, followed immediately by ‘The Seed (2.0)’, the joyous rhythms were relentless. With Black Thought inciting the crowd to keep their hands in the air, it was Questlove’s turn to mount an explosive percussion solo leading into Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’. A frenetic version of Kool G Rep and DJ Polo’s ‘Men At Work’ had the band running and jumping around the stage in a stirring finale, bringing to an end one of the most energetic and fun concerts that the Bowl has ever experienced.
More photos from Jason Rosewarne
