Those of you who are Sydney FC fans (and there must be at least a couple of you, even after the fairly ordinary season that the Bling have had this year) will know that this season, a good way to get it to rain has been to schedule a Sydney FC home game. And so it was that I was walking from the Sydney Football Stadium to the Hyde Park Barracks on the way to this gig feeling slightly empty, despite the fact that Sydney had taken the three points. Something was missing. Rain.

I should not have been concerned because as I came across Hyde Park, I started to hear a gentle rhythmic sound. I had hoped that it was the sound of the music at the Barracks in the distance, but it wasn’t. It was the rain. Which, if I was going to an indoor gig, would not have been any particular concern. The Barracks, however, is an indoor/outdoor venue, and it plays quite differently in the rain. The rain did indeed, tonight have an effect on the way the night panned out, but it had no effect on Sharon Jones indeed, she managed to stop the rain completely. But we’ll come to that.

What I came to as I dripped my way into the Festival Bar was the Ray Mann Three starting their set with Night with you. I had seen the Ray Mann Three a mere two days earlier (you can read my thoughts in my review of the Jamie Lidell gig at the Forum) and given that they played pretty much the same set as they played at Jamie Lidell, I’ll save some electrons and not repeat myself. I’m not critical of the fact that they played the same set – it’s a very good set, and they’ve a new drummer and, as I later found out, a stand-in bass player (which, in a three-piece involves a bit of reorganisation, so the fact that the set is as good as it was is testament to Mann’s talent as singer and guitarist). I did consider gliding into the marquee for a bit of a boogie, but the marquee was packed tight with people keeping their hair out of the rain, so I repaired to a spot under cover of an umbrella instead and negotiated the purchase of a sponsor’s product.

I’ve been something of an habitué of the Festival Bar over the last few years (I was not sure whether to be chuffed or horrified when one of the bar staff said to me, “Hey, I remember you from last year”) and it is always interesting to see the way that it changes from year to year. One of the most obvious innovations this year is a ground cover of artificial grass in the VIP area – which helps you avoid the mud only as long as you don’t want to actually go near the marquee where the stage is. One of the most obvious things that remains the same year after year is that the compressed earth and gravel floor surface at the Festival Bar is not kind to high heels, especially after a little rain. You don’t need your Glastonbury gumboots, but you are probably best served leaving your stilettos at home.

But anyway, enough of the people watching and back to the tunes. Gian Arpino was on the decks as the Ray Mann Three finished, and he was bringing the funk, starting with a wicked little tune called Tutti Frutti by Lee Austin aka The Burner (you know the sort of tune you love so much that you have to get the details, so you can look it up on discogs? Yeah, like that) and then working out through solid funk of the old and new schools. It was not only a great set in terms of track selection, it perfectly lifted the energy needed from the mellow groove on which the Ray Mann Three finished to the altogether more dynamic air needed to kick-start Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. It was a set that deserved a lot more love from the crowd who were standing in the marquee still trying to keep their hair dry; oh, and just quietly, crowd, you cannot get past me by dropping the point of your shoulder into the middle of my back. It does not work that way. You need to slide round.

Anyway, talking about the music again, as we were, it was now time for Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. The Dap Kings pack the usual funk line-up with a full horn section, and they gave us a warm up before the ageless Sharon Jones herself came on stage, dressed in a black, fringed, flapper style dress. She hit the first number, but there was a problem with the foldback. Rather than stopping the performance, she proceeded to sing her instructions to the mixing desk as though they were part of the song. It didn’t take too may choruses of “If I can’t hear me singing, the rest of you aren’t going to be able to hear me singing” before that problem was fixed.

This set the tone for the rest of the performance, Sharon Jones had plainly come prepared to give us a show. She hauled members of the audience up on stage (one woman in a similar, but shorter black. fringed flapper style dress was told “Girl, your dress is too short”) and a couple of photographers were also hauled up one of whom was speedily despatched for paying to much attention to his gear and not enough attention to La Jones. The band ripped through a solid set that featured mostly material from Sharon Jones’ two most recent albums, closing with 100 Days, 100 Nights. The call for an encore went up; a Dap King apologetically returned to stage to explain that they had a stand-in bass player and that they had already played all of the songs the bass player knew. Somehow this problem was overcome, however, and for a couple more songs, the band played on. I had been the set from just outside the marquee and throughout it all, the rain remained absent, which suggests that Sharon Jones’ talents might extend to the meteorological as well as the musical.

With the encore over, however, the rain and Frenzie both started up at about the same time (not that I’m blaming Frenzie for that, of course). Frenzie started brightly but although the feet said, “Keep dancing”, the head said, “It’s a school night”, so it was time to be off home. Another brilliant night at the Festival Bar and an excellent omen for the suggestion that this may be yet another Festival to remember.