When Roy Ayers first burst onto the scene, a large percentage of the people who frequent inthemix weren’t even born. It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to say that a lot of parents of inthemix users were possibly just hitting puberty. I think this speaks volumes about Roy Ayers, that his music still draws such a diverse age group stretching from young kids to those with more than a few grey hairs showing. Whatever their age, I can’t imagine one person left the Forum on Friday night disappointed.
As the general Friday culture goes, the CBD was buzzing with people gearing up for the weekend. The typical questions of “what are your plans for Friday night/weekend,” were shot my way. My reply was, “I’m going to see Roy Ayers, a xylophonist/vibraphonist play at the Forum tonight”. Generally, the only response I was greeted with was silence, or a look of dopey puzzlement. Go figure!
Nonetheless, I arrived at the forum to catch the Bamboos, who did a great job of warming up the crowd for Roy Ayers by playing a mixture of slow soul mixed with some booty shaking funk. Then N77 spun a few tracks, but you could sense the excitement as each track dropped meant one less track before Roy Ayers hit the stage. I can’t remember exactly the song dropped to start the night but I do remember the crowd erupted when the electric guitar started strumming for Running Away and Roy graced us on the microphone singing “doobie doo run run run,” with the crowd joining along in complete awe. From this point onwards, the track selection looked like a ‘best of’ Roy Ayers album as he played hit after hit, and for the most part the songs were extended mixes that showed off the musical skills of the other band members.
The tracks went from Don’t Stop the Feeling to We Live in Brooklyn Baby, with Roy substituting Brooklyn with Sydney and getting a roar from the crowd, then moving to Love Will Bring us Back Together, Sugar and Searching_. Special mention should go to the band for their work, as the 5-piece posse looked like they were having more fun than the crowd. You almost felt that even if half the crowd was in the Forum that night, they would have played with the same enthusiasm, passion and showmanship displayed to the crowd. This is what music should be about. The standout for me was the drummer who went absolutely ballistic, eventually moving from his drum kit and just banging away at the floor, and running around the stage drumming around to the delight of the crowd. He eventually made his way back to his drum kit where he proceeded to throw his drumstick at the pianist, keeping the beat for 8 bars with only one drumstick, and was eventually thrown his stick again to restart the full drum beat. This was showmanship at its best.
I could write for pages about how good this show was, but that would just annoy the good peeps of ITM. In summary, it was easily the freshest show in town that week (or a close second behind Stevie Wonder, perhaps), so if you didn’t make it along, then make sure you don’t miss out on Roy Ayers next time. It’s a shame there aren’t more events out there that create the same vibe that we witnessed on Friday. Much thanks should go to Niche Productions who go out of their way to bring out their fair share of ‘risky’ acts, and Sydney needs to keep rising to the occasion to show that this city has taste.
