On Saturday night @Newtown, The RSL club with a difference (not a digger in site in ‘ere), was the venue for a night of Sydney music. The Bird were launching their new CD/DVD entitled ‘The Birdsville Sessions’ and they brought along their Blue Mountains buddies Hermitude.

The show kicked off just after 10pm with Hermitude gracing the stage inviting the swelling numbers of punters to grace the dance floor in readiness for the beats they were about to drop. I last saw Hermitude about three years ago when they played on the little forgotten stage in the trees behind the main stage at Field Day. That was just prior to them releasing there first album Alleys to Valleys and the five people, inclusive of me, who saw their show that day must have told more than a few friends about the prowess behind beat machines of the two lads, as evidenced by the number of people ready to boogie as soon as El Gusto and Luke Dubs hit the stage this night.

Having released a second album last year (Tales of the Drift) and with countless live shows around Sydney and Australia these two fellas have come along way. Their live performance set up consists of Luke Dubs behind two keyboards and El Gusto on laptop, MPC and cutting in samples from two turntables. Playing the non-mc’d tracks from both of their albums as well as some fresh sounds yet to be released Hermitude were a superb prelude to The Bird. Highlights included El Gusto pasting a nice juggle on the turntables and Lee Dubs’ venture into Jazz. With a pacing jazz drum track looped from the MPC machine he adlibbed on the keyboard, demonstrating his adept twinkling skills. Additionally their ode to electro, straight from the streets of New York, rocked the house, as did their closer Madness in G Minor which was taken up ten levels from the album recording with the extended percussion section inciting passionate wails from the crowd when it ended.

Next up was The Bird. First to the stage was Simon Durrington soloing on key boards and effects to set the tone with some programmed jungle and drum and bass. Following him on stage were bass player Barry Hill and Ben Walsh on his tiny stage front drum kit. Although it’s a tiny, simple piecemeal drum kit Ben manages to make a whole lot of sound, very rapidly, banging it. The dance floor was completely covered as he introduced the band, including new member on tabla drums Bobby Singh and himself and they proceed to wash the crowd with storming drum and bass grooves. After a couple of tracks Ben kindly apologised for banging with to much intensity on his kit. His apology was accepted openly, he is very hard to keep up with, which continually kept me posing the question – How can a man match the pace of what was originally created on machines? His drumming skills are truly phenomenal. Add to that the way he drives and leads the group of musicians he surrounds himself with – wide eyes, smiles and simultaneous prompts screamed down the microphone.

The Bird playing mostly material from their latest Birdsville sessions album took us to the jungle, beat us with drum and bass, smoked it down with blissful dub and even dirtied it down with some funk adding a horn section of trombonist and saxophonist halfway through their set. The highlight of which, amongst many, would have to have been when Bobby Singh and Ben Walsh undertook a call and response sequence with Ben banging a phrase on his kit and Bobby returning that same phrase on his tabla drums. Bobby Singh demonstrated his masterfulness on his instrument in being able to match it with the phrenetic action of Ben Walsh. The sound of the tabla drums as well as Bobby’s scat style vocal chants truly added an exotic sound to The Bird sound throughout the night. Moreover, in a similar sequence to the Ben and Bobby face off Ben directed the same call and response between Barry Hill on the standup jazz bass and Simon on electronic keyboard to much respected acceptance.

Later in their set they brought Luke Dubs from Hermitude to play live on the tracks he previously had contributed to the recording of The Birdsville Sessions. From this point the stage was bursting with a plethora of musicians all bringing their individual instrumental dexterity to The Bird sound and before we knew it, they all huddled up, took a bow and departed. The Bird, with Hermitude in support. Who needs international music superstars when you’ve got these fellas putting it together progressively, passionately, creatively and inspirationally, in our own backyard.