It’s Wednesday now, and the long weekend past seems miles away… until I put the Red Eyes debut CD back in the player. Suddenly I’m back at the Crown & Sceptre, Friday night, experiencing the rare thrill of delicious live dub reggae. It was a modest crowd, but that wasn’t going to affect the Red Eyes performance, or the present numbers’ entertainment. The eight members of the band who managed to cram themselves and their instruments into their tour van had travelled 800 kilometres to play this gig… and play they would.

As if to tease the audience to attention, (or perhaps warm them up cautiously before some serious dancing) the boys started with an ultra down-beat track, show-casing the bands ability to hold together a groove that in lesser hands would simply fall apart. I could feel the awkwardness of the dancers who felt the motivation, but lacked the necessary experience to slink along to such deep beats. The tease didn’t last long, and the floor loosened up quickly… in fact the available space on the floor was put to good use by half a dozen high-energy dancers who were let it rip early, and kept it up until the final applause.

I was impressed by how well the band managed to translate their recorded material to the stage. Singing along to the melodies of the tracks from Prolific / My Kingdom was impossible to resist, and the three tracks from the disc were all stand-outs for me. Having read a little about the band, and spoken with El prior to the gig, I had a fair idea of what to expect, so there were few surprises. Lots of sexy down-tempo dub, some jump-a-long reggae, and even a taste of something a lot faster, as their ‘red eyes’ title-song transformed into a D’n’B beat to close their encore.

Somehow the long and skinny Sceptre stage accommodated all visiting band members, and allowed them to function freely. Two keyboardists (one with turntable and sampler also), a sax player, trumpeter, guitarist, bass player, drummer and vocalist created the ‘all the way live’ sound, with delays and production dressing provided from producer Damien. He managed to recreate all the delays and echoes that make the dub sound so distinctive, and gave the boys a pretty good onstage mix. Having been pounded at a D’n’B gig the week before, I found myself wanting a little more of that sumpuous bass, and the keys could have probably come up a bit too… but who ever said mixing eight live musicians on a strange PA was easy?

Punters had plenty to smile about from beginning to end. Singer El shared his passionate lyrics and melodies with a casual stage charm, while the band of musos showed they were clearly enjoying every minute of the show. The rhythm section was on the money the whole gig, and while lacking the trombonist, the horns’ expressiveness and harmonies were dead sexy. It was great to see a crowd of all colours and ages sharing the Red Eyes’ good vibrations- such is the power of top-shelf dub. True to the spirit and messages of the music’s long history, the Red Eyes are breathing new life into dub in Australia and are doing it with soul and authenticity.