Apart from kicking off with a brief instrumental version of "Black Gold
Of The Sun", the material came entirely from "Page 1" of "Two Pages",
and to bring it to the stage Mark & Dego had a total of 20 additional
musicians - 8 strings, 3 horns + Chris Bowden on sax, 3 singers, Ursula
Rucker, guitar, percussion - oh, and drums & bass (double.) Dego came
out front a few times, to introduce the musicians and some of the tunes,
but Mark Mac stayed well into the shadows.
I'm not sure it was quite firing on all cylinders at the start of the
set. Things sounded a bit muddy during "Loveless", but after the first
couple of tunes things really started to swing. Though they stuck fairly
closely to the way things were on the LP, Chris Bowden was allowed more
room to stretch out, and they added some nice touches like dropping into
a nice steppers rhythm during "Escape That".
I was kind of expecting them to do "Universal Love" as an encore, but
instead Ursula Rucker, gave us "Loveless" again as a farewell as she's
due to have a baby (real soon, it looks like.) And that was it... about
70 minutes total. Loveless did sound better the second time around, but
I'd have preferred them to have gone on longer, or not done the same
tune twice - especially given that they didn't do "Spirits In Transit"
or "Universal Love".
Still, this was a terrific gig - and from an outfit that up 'til now has
been completely studio based, it was pretty amazing.
..Mark..