Konono Number 1.

Every event has it's ups and downs. The beginning of Thursday night felt to me more like "FutureNothing" but by the end of the night, I can assure you it had proved its self as "FutureEveything".
Eight hours at my day job was quickly followed by a dash into town to Club Academy. The next three hours, me and another three volunteers shifted one table from the back of the venue to the stage. I'm sure there is a joke in there about how many engineers does it take to move a table, but I couldn't find the punchline :P

Bass Clef's sound check broke up the day. The dirty, triplet driven grind of dub step filed the venue. When the lad produced a trombone I felt very suspicious, but as the squeaks and rumbles came from the brass I realised that my fears were unfounded. The dull hours before doors dragged somewhat but I was soon rewarded for my patience. He played a storming set. His chilled, easy going style gave an atmosphere of fun and relaxation (and did I mention was absolutely storming).
Following this excellency were Konono No. One. The played a fun filled set, that would not have been out of place at the world music stage in the afternoon at summer music festival . Essentially an acoustic 'african drum' band, they played and enormous two hour set, each song lasting in the order of twenty minutes! The only electronic element was that in of the marimba (thumb piano) that had been passed through the oldest 70's overdrive pedal I had ever seen, causing it to 'stick out' in a peculiar but satisfying was. The whole lot was initially miked through a couple of old aluminium speaker 'megaphone type's that wouldn't have seemed out of place on a sports track. (The drummers cymbal was made of various circles of scrap tin, see video!)
The whole night had a fantastic vibe and had everybody dancing, and i mean everybody. I'm sure if you didn't even want to dance you would have ended up surrendering and moving your body to the beat.

For me the close down was a nightmare, as all the gear had to be emptied from the venue and into an already very full van (to be expected) but then across to SoundControl, where an unrelated event packed the venue full of blue jeans and white tee shirts. All this gear was loaded through the crowd and into the venue, which (without ramps or lifts) needed to be taken down 3 flights of stairs! Exhausted I got to bed at 3am another day of FutureEverything  already not far on the horizon.

Bizarrely, i met my old college mate from years ago, who was running the 'world music society*' merch stand. Apparently the gig had originally been theirs, but had a FutureEverything stamp of endorsement on it! (Although I think that is another story!)