If ever a band was built with the Festival circuit, it is the big bad London dance band, a masterful conglom of live disco and EDM with much less of the E and more of the DM. This is the third time I’ve seen them in the last couple of years and they’ve never come close to letting me down and they don’t hear. With the gregarious Kesi Dryden MCing, the beats master Amir Amor handling the beats and Ella Eyre and Bridgette ripping the lungs out of every single song.
Kesis dedicates a song to his five year old son and it is a great moment in a show with plenty of them, the unflagging energy and excellence has the audience -by the way, later last night Drake claimed it was the best audience he ever had, and while I don’t know about that, in set after set the audience were the fifth Beatle.
The new song “Never Let You Go” was much better live and “Free” a huge singalong and “Bloodstream” (you know, the Sheeran track) was a slow build ever upward. but just a holding action for a “Waiting All Night” which took mild stabs with sensual “I’ve been waiting all night for you…” and long swathes of horns and Ella’s great singing, with Kesi hanging in the wings to give Ella even more room to dance and the entire band erupting.A showstopper for sure. The Rudimental message? “It’s not about us on stage, it is about you there right now…”
A terrific set closer, except it wasn’t and as the show went on, I ducked out.
Grade: B+
