Day 7: This is Acapello

Bran Eno said this event would be a surprise. Eno’s an acapello fanboy and sings in his own acapello group. But nothing prepared me for how astonishing a experience this turned out to be. I had a taste of Reggie Watts during the week and was hungry for more. He was the perfect compere defying every convention of formal concert performance. He was surreal, funny, jammed with the artists and gave his own hilarious looped, acapello songs such as Caucasian Spiritual. Then five guys from New York who gave us soul, blues and, just for Brighton, a fantastic version of Under the Boardwalk. The Brighton crowd, probably sick of election talk, were really up for this. Finally we had Naturally 7, secen young guys from New York, who gave a jaw dropping show. They produce a wall of sound, including drums, guitar, bass, wind and string instruments. The guy on drums took us through each piece, snare, bass, high-hat, crash and toms. My son’s a drummer and I’ve set drum kits up dozens of times and I swear that if you closed your eyes, you’d think this these were the breal deal. It was almost beyond belief what these kids were doing with the human voice. When they attempted George Harrisons, ‘When My Guitar Gently Weeps’ I thought they’d bitten off more than they could sing – but it was a wailing masterpiece. I’ve seen some great things in the Dome over many years but this was different, as it was so unexpected. Give it up for the Eno man.