So far this season the Beck’s Festival Bar has seen some pretty stellar nights (and I hope I can use that adjective without annoying the sponsors too much.)  This was no exception – if the sound of drums gives you strength, you would have walked out of this feeling like Charles Atlas.

A good crowd started to flow in early, probably in part because of the free tickets up for grabs to the first fifty subscribers to the SMS alert service to turn up.  Without wishing to be a complete suck-up (and without wanting to appear as though I was angling for a season VIP pass for next year) the Beck’s Festival Bar has been very well promoted this year.  Free tickets for early arrivals on a wet and blustery Wednesday was an astute move which ensured Skin got the kind of crowd they deserved.

And because it wouldn’t be Sydney without a little crowd-watching, and because the way in which the crowd at the Beck’s Festival Bar changes from night to night is probably a fitting Ph. D. subject in social demography for someone, here are my observations as against previous nights: more bare feet, more unconventional hair, more stomping energy in the dancing, and bigger smiles.

Anyway, back to the music.  Skin are a four piece percussion ensemble.  Percussion ensembles can be difficult to listen to if they’re not bang on their game – it’s all too easy to suddenly think that you are listening to someone rolling a wardrobe full of enamel mugs end-over-end down William Street.  No risk of that here though – Skin are the win.  The fact that Natalie, their djembe player, is hold-the-phone gorgeous doesn’t hurt them none, either.  And their party trick, the “Wheel o’ Drummers” has to be seen to be believed – three different drummers taking turns rotating behind the kit without at any point dropping a single beat.  Apparently, Skin gigs can be a bit few and far between, but you can you catch Natalie and some of the other members in another group called “Blue King Brown”.  Highly recommended.

Wild Marmalade were up next, with two percussionists and an amplified didge, playing “completely improvised dance music”, we were told.  The didge player was squeezing some pretty amazing sounds out of what is, at the end of the day, a lump of wood with a hole in it.  As with all truly improvised music, some bitts of it worked better than others, but overall it kept the vibe going nicely.

A little after ten, and it’s headline time as the Bird come on stage.  For the last ten years the Bird has been the if-he-isn’t-on-the-National-Heritage-register-he-bloody-well-should-be Ben Walsh and Simon Durrington, with regular contributions from tabla supremo Bobby Singh.  Bobby’s now part of the band and they’ve added a bass player as well.  And, tonight, a horn section (so remember, next time you are playing trivia at the pub and you are asked “What is the only bird which has horns?”, answer, “The Bird”.  Trust me on this.)

The Bird have a new album coming out shortly and on the basis of what they played tonight, it’s going to be a screamer.  The bass player was switching between upright and electric bass and as “drum ‘n’ upright bass” (dnub) being an amalgam of d’n’b and dub, describes the Bird’s sound perfectly, we have witnessed the birth of a new genre, although I might have started to over-analyse things by this point.

One of the highlights of a Bird gig is watching Ben Walsh belt out live drum’n’bass while also being the “front man” in the way he controls the energy of the crowd.  He seems to have been working on his toasting skills, which is a good addition to his already bulging repertoire.  The new line-up gives the Bird much more of a band feel when they play live and it was just awesome to see, especially when, for the finale, the members of Skin and Wild Marmalade can back on stage and Ben Walsh conducted them with a mixture of hand signals and sung drum patterns.  To have a sound which is so organic yet so, so tight is an incredible achievement.

Kicking back in the VIP area trying to get my jaw off the ground after the Bird’s set ended, I noticed security had let in a couple of possums who did not, as far as I could see, have the appropriate wristbands.  One might wonder what the point of a VIP area is if they are going to let any passing critters in.  But one might also surmise, from the fact that I am reduced to picking on defenceless native fauna to try to find something to complain about, that this was a magical, magical night.