I got the opportunity to check out Roots Manuva playing live at the Powerstation last night (thanks, Gavin!). He bought a 4 piece band with him, along with fellow MC Ricky Ranking. There was enough bass coming off the stage to rearrange your organs, it was phat. He played for an hour and a half and left the crowd well satisfied.
Roots Manuva kept his interaction with the crowd to a bare minimum, saying "Auckland city!" for the most part, but he did talk to the crowd at length at least once. After dropping a monstrous version of Witness (1 hope), he told the crowd "I've been coming here for ten years now, and you've shown me nothing but love. But Auckland, I have to have a moan. Cos I hear you had an election recently, and some of you didn't vote! Now, how can you sing One hope one quest when you didnt even vote? Sort that out. That's my moan for the night..."
His band consisted of a DJ, female keyboard player also on BVs, a rock solid drummer, and a guitarist who looked like he used to play in a White Zombie/Korn covers band - that dude was hugely entertaining. He thrashed and posed and riffed like his life depended on it. And the funny part was he was so low in the sound mix that you couldn't hear a damn thing he was playing. Which was no great loss. I heard his effects units included a Metalzone pedal. Guitarists in the house say UGH.
David Carroll from Volume Magazine interviewed Roots Manuva recently, read it here. Excerpt... "When asked if his approach to making music has changed since he first began, his answer is typically disarmingly honest - and tongue-in-cheek: "Oh yeah, I think it's just growing up as a professional, tax-paying musician, I kind of learned how to condense and compartmentalise the kind of emotional tantrums into the context of song." He's a funny guy.
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