A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum – actually, that’s not true, it was just an attempt to make what is probably the first ever allusion to the work of Stephen Sondheim on ITM. But what is true is that some utterly incredible things happened when I got to the Forum, as Jamie Lidell and his band melted genres, time signatures, and more than a few heads, your humble correspondent’s included.

I arrived to find the Forum stage richly decorated with floral arrangements, with vines and bunches of grapes strung up above the stage. I also arrived to find the Mad Racket chaps playing dark loop-based electronica of the kind that could be not unfairly described as “dirge overkill”. Which seemed an odd choice amongst the flowers, but there you have it.

Soon enough the dirges gave way and the Ray Mann Three were out on stage. It’s a very helpful band name, ‘the Ray Mann Three’ – it reminds you that there are three of them, that one of them is called Ray, and that Mann, they sure are good. Having honed their show in the credible intimacy of Sydney venues like Tonic and Melt, the recent release of an album titled The Ray Mann Three has seen them graduating to bigger rooms and bigger bills. Their set tonight showed just how deserved that graduation is.

The Three are Ray Wassef (but who we will call “Ray Mann” for the purposes of this review, otherwise the band’s name is less helpful) on guitar and vocals, Byron Luiters on bass, and Grant Gerathy on drums. The flavour is stripped back soul with strong jazz leanings; Mann has a fine, clear voice that on more than one occasion calls to mind the voice of the evening’s headliner; although his dress sense differs, the Three favour the waistcoats, white shirts and loosely knotted ties look that seems to be de rigeur at the moment amongst those playing music which harks back to a better age. Starting with the album’s last track, Night With You, the Three groove through the album’s tracks, with plenty of space allowed for all players to show their assured, and deftly deployed, improvisational skills – Mann’s guitar work on Shine was a particular highlight as the tempo lifted towards the end of the set. The Ray Mann Three are an act well worth checking out – go see them at Playground Weekender if you don’t get chance to catch them before that.

Simon Caldwell followed the Three and his selections picked up nicely from the groove on which the Three had ended and then built the energy – there was some proper electro, some disco, and some stuff in between. You could call it “Music to fill venues by”, if you wanted a general genre name, for by this stage the Forum was starting to fill and there was certainly no more room (on inclination) to be seated.

The suddenly the music stopped and the stage went dark, until a drummer dressed all in black materialised under all-white lights which created a halo around the drum kit. As a fairly furious drum solo ensued, the band entered the stage, a guitarist/bassist, a keyboard player, a saxophonist of the mostly bass variety, and then finally Lidell himself, dressed in a glittering gold brocade jacket and an enormous black wig. He grabbed the microphone and launched into the first number (I was keeping a set list, but it melted with my head a little later in the evening). It became clear fairly quickly that this was going to be an incredible show.

The first “how on earth do they do that?” moment came in the second track – Lidell had shed his wig by now, and his saxophonist had swapped his brass horn for a MIDI saxophone. As Lidell scat-sang a series of increasingly complex phrases, the saxophonist played back the same phrases, call and response style. And as if this wasn’t difficult enough, the saxophonist ended up lying flat on the stage as he was playing (although he then waved his legs in the air for us to show us that he was OK). Which we could tell from the playing, just quietly.

Lidell doesn’t just sing, of course – his soul voice is but one of the tools, the other main tool being a desk of samplers and other kit about the size of a small aircraft carrier. Throughout the early part of the set he had prowled behind the desk, prodding and twisting, and then about midway through, the band melted away and the full power of the gear was unleashed. He started with a simple beatbox which he sampled and looped, then added another. Shift the time signature of the first loop back a bit. Another beatbox, then a vocal hook. Sample. Loop. Build. Construct. Like a gold-clad Gershwin, like a brocaded Beethoven, Lidell has just composed the track we are hearing on the fly, there on stage.

The band returned and Lidell worked his way through the songs from his most recent album Jim, which is an album that for many people seems to have taken a bit of time to get into. Performed live, they take on a whole new dimension; listening to the album again, I get it now. Perhaps this is because, as a performer, Lidell is a sort of the uber-Jamie, a model for all the other Jamies out there. Jamie Cullum must wish he had the purity of Lidell’s voice; Jamie Lloyd must wish he had as much kit as Lidell (although Lidell’s somewhat quirky dancing style brought Lloyd to mind) and Jamie Oliver must wish that people loved his cooking as much as tonight’s crowd loved Lidell.

This was the sort of show that reminds you what it really is to be a showman; Lidell is not only Exhibit A in that regard, but Exhibits, B, C and D through K as well. If you were there, you’ll understand what I mean, if you missed out, don’t let that happen again…