Morcheeba was not at all what I expected. In fact, they were pretty much the exact opposite. When sticking to the laid-back trip-hop style for which they’re known, their act fell flat; but on transforming into an upbeat, dance-around-the-stage groove band, they absolutely killed. I was baffled.
Going into the show, I knew that vocalist Skye Edwards had left the band in 2003, and admittedly, what had hooked me on Morcheeba was the band’s material that came with her in the lineup. I loved the smooth, slow, groovy beats and synthesizers overlayed with unexpected slide guitar and fiddle. The trippy, chilled-out backbeat, combined with Edwards’ smooth, breathy-deep delivery made them unlike anything I had listened to before.
So I was understandably confused when, although the band stuck to that well-trod formula for the first half of the show, they completely failed to win me over. They played all of their slow, trippy classics—“Moog Island,” “Otherwise,” “Trigger Hippie,” “Part of the Process”—delivered utterly faithful to the album versions. But Andy Robertson’s drums lacked the machine-like precision of the beats on the albums, Ross Godfrey’s guitar seemed too prominent in the mix, and new singer Manda Ophuis (of the Dutch goth-rock band Nemesea) was just very different from Skye Edwards. Though she danced around enthusiastically, the rest of the band (and the music) seemed lethargic, almost droning. This is not to say they sounded bad: the musicianship was excellent, but they simply sounded like any other live band. A friend summed it up perfectly when he said it sounded like they played the same song for the first 40 minutes.
But then everything turned around on their second to last song, “Let Me See,” off of 1998’s Big Calm. Halfway through the number, keyboardist Andy Nunn whipped out a tenor sax for a solo, the band swelled, and the crowd (seated and quiet to this point) stood and burst into spontaneous applause. From there on out (the final song plus a 20-minute encore), the band clicked beautifully, playing upbeat numbers, getting the crowd to stand up and dance in the aisles, and generally enjoying the hell out of themselves. A new band had taken the stage, founded in roots rock, hard groove, and soul music. What had happened to the Morcheeba I thought I knew coming in the door? Case in point: the night’s greatest moment was a jam on Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” Ross Godfrey swinging his guitar about wildly during his solo, Ophuis dancing around bass player Bradley Burgess, and the crowd jumping in place. If you had told me the high point of the show would be a high-energy funk/soul classic, I would have assumed you had either never heard Morcheeba or were on strong hallucinogens.
I think I may have figured it out: If you want to listen to classic, chilled-out, downbeat, trip-hoppy Morcheeba with Skye on vocals, stay in and listen to their albums at home. The live experience just won’t live up to that. But if you want to see a talented group of musicians really showing their stuff, having fun and giving an excited, energetic, groove-filled performance, go see Morcheeba. Though I wished the entire show had been more like the second half, I inevitably would have felt robbed without hearing them play the chillout classics I had expected. It’s sort of a Catch-22, but I can honestly say the last 30 minutes of the show made the whole thing well worth the price of admission.
