Johari's
first gig : The Lamb Inn,
Sandford
30 August 2002
Review
by Marcus Podilchuck
A
few miles' drive through the
dark and rainy lanes in late
August led to Sandford, and
the Lamb Inn's lights welcoming
us to an eclectic evening
of energetic earbashing headlined
by new band Johari.
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Having your first ever gig
supported by the likes of Exeter's own Rev Hammer, Simon Friend
(of the Levellers) and Phil Johnstone (Robert Plant's keyboard
player) could be a daunting prospect - albeit a crowd-pulling
one. But the five members of Johari iced the cake and gave
us a tightly-rendered mix of non-cliched covers and solidly-crafted
self-pennned numbers.
Marie - bedecked in three decade's worth of fashion icons,
and 'new girl' Kimi - raking the rhythm, are the visual frontline,
backseat driven by lead-guitaring / keyboarder Andy Manson,
percussionist Simon Shakespeare and Chris Legg on bass.
'Usually', that is ...
Two thirds through the set, the line up shuffles and shuffles
again in a series of rotating reinventions upping the energy
and getting those not too dizzified dancing in the fractional
space in front of the foldback ...
Marie grabs a bass and minutes
later plays musical chairs vying for the drum seat, while
Chris rides the octaves and wraps his ex-blacksmith fingers
round a mandolin with surprising deftness. Kimi goes for hands-free
vocals centre stage; and unskinned drummer Simon gets into
some six-stringed strumming and singing.
Hailing from Exeter and Crediton, the band have been rehearsing
hard - and it showed. Credit must also go to engineer Paul
Bateman for lifting the sound way beyond the usual pub fug.
Pumping rock numbers rolled into mid-punk reminiscent of early
Stranglers, with the set jumping tracks in and out of rounded
Arabic grooves incensed with wailing vocals and cow bells.
Thirteen songs flashed by and the audience asked for and got
more; then Johari headed off to build on their bold beginnings
with talk of work on more numbers and an upcoming CD.
Marc
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