Man, what a performer.

After the critically acclaimed debut album ‘Multiply’, Lidell drops his second long player ‘JIM’ after much anticipation, if not expectation; and Baggy got himself a couple of tickets to see the man perform in Manchester last night, interested to see if this polished singers direction had developed with the potential to cross over into the mainstream.

Judging from last night’s sold out gig at Manchester’s intimate surroundings of Academy 3 there’s no doubt that with his carefully crafted repertoire of material coupled with an ability to engross the audience from start to finish, theres no doubt in my mind that a number of tracks from the new album could easily sit alongside chart releases from pop heavyweights such as Amy Winehouse (A few new tracks certainly had a heavy Dap King’s/vintage soul feel).

Typically, it took me about an hour to suss out how to use my girlfriends camera phone so I of course missed the highlight of the gig where Lidell famously overdubs his vocals, using the individual tracks to build an almost deep house vibe with additional computer generated beats (“This is when it was just me an my broken machines!” ), creating a seamless montage of sounds to stunning effect.

I finally managed to get things together for the encore where he dropped the title track from his debut LP - ‘Multiply’. Apologies for the dodgy sound but you get a good idea of the vibe from the crowd.

JIM is available in all good record stores now, so go out and get yourself a copy. Saying that, if you’ve yet to pick up Muliply then pick that up too. Amazing stuff indeed.

Jamie Lidell is still playing a few dates in the UK & Ireland (2nd May Bristol, 3rd May Dublin) before heading out to Europe and finally across to the United States in June, busy indeed. Check out his website for dates.

Right, I’m knackered (Hence the vague review) and posting from the office so i’m outta here.

Enjoy the clip…

Last 5 posts by baggy

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