Maverick Sabre, Aruba Red & Logic @ Jazz Cafe, 9th June 2011

Another virginity lost! My first visit to the legendary 'Jazz Cafe' in Camden is certainly not something I will wake-up and regret in the morning...

I had a great night out tonight supporting my boyfriend Kaz who was playing drums for Aruba Red (daughter of legendary bass player Jack Bruce). MC Logic warmed up the crowd ready for Aruba Red and her band, who were on-point the entire set.  This was the 2nd time I had seen her perform, and enjoyed it more than the first. The atmosphere in the iconic venue was great as expected, and her overall performance and allure on stage was great to watch.

 However..... the night was all about English born, Irish bred R&B/hip-hop/soul singer Maverick Sabre..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mnz1NpwSVk

I recognised a few of Maverick's more well known songs like 'Jungle' and 'I need', but I have to admit that I didn't really know much about him before tonight. It was his fist headline gig, and as he put it "the greatest moment of my career so far". However,  he is playing the I.O.W festival this weekend, so I don't know how long that statement will stand! 

I had a great view up on the balcony surrounded by his family and friends who were all watching intently and with beaming pride. You could see it in his face, he was soaking up every second and wasn't put-off by the 100+ screaming girls in the audience. After his recent appearances on The Jools Holland Show and BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, and numerous tour dates supporting the likes of Plan B and Snoop Dog, I have no doubt that Maverick Sabre will be a name familiar to most of us by the end of the year. He is definately one-to-watch. 

Losing my blogging virginity!

Here goes...... A couple of weeks ago, I went to see a gig in Islington with one of my good friends Fliss. She came to visit me here in London, and wanted to take me to see her friend play in his 3 piece, guitar based band (who shall remain anonymous). I checked them out online before the gig and I thought they were good, but not something that I would choose to listen to in my own time. However,  I was still looking forward to the gig because I always enjoy listening to live music, weather it's to my taste or not. The band were good but I found myself getting rather bored towards the end of their set, there was, for me, to much guitar, and I struggled to hear the lyrics of the song - being a singer myself,  the lyrics of a song are really important to me. Don't get me wrong, I love listening to music that doesn't have lyrics, but if there are lyrics, then I want to be able to hear them.


Whilst the band were playing, the venue filled up to standing room only, and members of the audience began clinging onto anything around the walls to better their view of the stage, ready for the next band 'Quadron' - a 3 piece neo-soul band from Denmark. I was completely unaware of their popularity, and had just thought I was in for another night of various unknown bands, playing playing back to back to a half empty audience. However, as soon as Quadron stepped onto the stage, the crowd, and the atmosphere in the very intimate venue exploded.

The crowd were ecstatic, and with my expectations growing, the lead singer 'Coco O' kicked the set off with her powerful and almost haunting vocals that remained flawless throughout. The Danish band played atleast 10 songs, and with the majority of the crowd knowing the lyrics word-for-word, the audience were singing along throughout the night;  I even began to sing along to some of their very catchy melodies that remained embedded in my head for the rest of the evening. After being pressured by the crowd to let Quadron perform one more song, the sound engineer broke curfew and let them have their encore that was so desperately wanted by everybody in the audience.


All in all, it was a fantastic performance that confused, surprised and charmed me all at the same time. I would definitely recommend going to see Quadron perform live because I believe that there are few recordings that show off this ladies very full potential, and certainly nothing that can quite capture her presence on stage.


Phew! Glad that's over!