HERBERT @ Club Soda

By Trevor Kiernander - Ones and Zeroes - 08/24/2006

One thing is for certain, when you go to see Matthew Herbert perform, you can’t be sure what you are going to get. This definitely held up with his recent, not-so-sold-out performance at Club Soda.

I was first shocked at how few people had shown up to see one of today’s finer experimental musicians. His previous album Plat du Jour consisted almost entirely of found sounds, and was performed to a packed Darling Foundry a year or so ago for the Nuit Blanche. I slept on researching this show, as it has been a ridiculously busy summer for me, so I wasn’t even aware that he was playing with a band that night. The opener had also cancelled, so it was turning out to be far from a call-home-to-mom kind of night.

The band took to the stage wearing smoking jackets à la Jamie Lidell, which I thought was the first faux pas of the evening. It wasn’t very soon after that the soul took over and a singer, again similar to Lidell, started belting it out. For those of you who have seen Lidell perform before, it is a pretty phenomenal sight, and something almost impossible to compete with so I was quickly on my way to an early escape. But it’s Herbert, and the man can make music, so I stuck around.

Even though the new album Scale deals with more 'human'-based sound and instrumentation, I couldn’t help but constantly make the comparisons to Lidell -- especially since his Jazz Fest performance at the same venue was only a couple months prior.

There were decent moments and Herbert can make a crowd move, but I think there were a number of people who may have known ahead of time what to expect and it reflected in the turnout. There was a Plat du Jour moment where he crumpled a plastic water bottle and transformed it into mass bongo hysteria but for the most part, it seemed like a very safe set. I’m not one to give bad reviews unless it is obviously warranted (see: James Blunt), so I’ll blame this one on not having a great day. Can’t wait to see him perform again though. Always a treat.

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