“Let it rain…Let it rain soul music,” was the response by the Californian soul singer to the flash flooding that was happening outside the four walls of The Prince last Friday night. Over the next hour and a half he and his backing band The Grand Scheme managed to make the room collectively smile and bop, forgetting the miserable Melbourne weather.

Wearing slacks and a cardigan, the clean-cut Aloe Blacc delivered an hour of smooth revivalist soul from his album Good Things and a few left-field covers. Playing both his music, which looks back to the time of Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye, and interpreting other styles of music, his show became a thesis – that ‘soul’ comes from all forms and cultures of music.

His recent fame is mainly due to his single, I Need a Dollar, of which he played an extended version. The track had a quick taste of him singing No Woman No Cry, just before delving into a Cuban salsa/reggaeton breakdown with Maya Jupiter guest MCing. The track was milked for all it’s worth and for that was definitely welcomed by the crowd.

He performed other tracks of his like You Make Me Smile with an overjoyed confidence which became infectious. He had control over the whole room, which he called his “Church of Love and Happiness”. It was almost an attempt to recreate a vibe similar to that of Sam Cooke’s Harlem Square show. However, the vintage sound he strived for maybe fell a little short due to the lack of brass and keys, both of which he usually uses.

His slowed-down interpretation of Billie Jean, as well as Velvet Underground’s Femme Fatale (both risky songs to cover) were two of the highlights of the set. He even stretched as far by doing a rendition of Green Day’s Basketcase. This maybe tried to drive the point that soul is “same across cultures, it’s the same for everyone” a bit too heavy-handedly.

Aloe Blacc’s journey into his broadly-defined world of soul music made the room smile and move into the night – definitely a gig that made the wet venture out the front door worth the hassle.