I was at the Hammer museum to see Fitz and the Tantrums and I had only a vague idea of what to expect of The Heavy, the second band of the evening. Now it’s awesome when it happens like this and you find the performance of an unknown band (to me) to be a great surprise.
They are from England, although nothing would let you think it is the case, and their audacious sound is anchored in funk and soul with some power rock flirting with punk (on ‘Oh! Not You Again!!’) or hard rock (on ‘No Time’, ‘What You Want Me To Do’, almost a metal sound on this latter one!) or totally embracing reggae (‘Cause For Alarm’), or even slow ballads. How can you categorize music like this anyway? Funk-soul-rock-reggae-punk?
Kelvin Swab, the vocalist has all the charisma of the greatest performers, moving and jumping, screaming, interacting with the two girls doing the back-up vocals, sweating his ass off on stage with a raw energy and a natural good humor.
Their addictive ‘How You Like Me Now?’ is so all-powerfully energetic that you would swear they were covering a James Brown song, whereas they have actually sampled ‘Let A Woman Be A Woman’ by Dyke & The Blazers. They gave a much more restrained rendition of this song in the Letterman show last January with saxophones, which were absent at the Hammer, and the song has even been used for a KIA commercial, unfortunately or fortunately depending on your point of view.
‘Sixteen’ could be a cover of ‘I Put a Spell on You’ by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the songs sounding almost identical, as they have sampled the horn line from the old classic.
Ok, I must admit all this sampling may seem disappointing because they trick you in a way, but they are not just a sampling band, as they delivered a muscular show, an explosive performance with amazing guitar and drum bursts and an outpouring amount of enthusiasm that managed to electrify the crowd of the Hammer museum.