It’s a busy night for music lovers in old Edinburgh town.
In the recently reopened Liquid Rooms, Steve Ignorant is bashing out the Crass back catalogue with the most immaculate cultural timing. Up at the Corn Exchange, the Manic Street Preachers are performing their lumpen anthems for proles. Local noise-makers Muscletusk launch their new album to a chundering whiteout of sound in the Banshee Labyrinth and even the Filmhouse gets in on the act as the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra roll up to perform an inspired soundtrack to the early short Dada-esque films of Hans Richter.
All of which collectively explains why the HMV Picture House is, frankly and unfortunately, dead. It’s fifteen minutes to showtime for the legendary Nigerian Afrobeat drummer, who’s performed with everyone from Fela Kuti to The Good, The Bad and The Queen, but the audience here consists of a few solitary punters milling around the bar area. It does not, to put it mildly, look good.
Allen strides onstage with a mighty swagger, Ray Bans perma-wrapped around his skull and clad in camouflage gear. If he’s concerned about audience size, he certainly doesn’t show it. Seating himself behind his huge drum kit perched on the left side of the stage, he rattles up a monumental groove and suddenly the place is explosively alive. While the crowd is thin, they are more than up for a serious party and rush to the front.
Allen remains behind his drums for the duration of the gig, an inscrutable presence occasionally given to muttering words of gnomic wisdom. However, his remarkable band more than works the stage on his behalf. Consisting of two guitarists and a three piece horn section plus keyboards, bass and a fantastic female singer who acts as a semi-cheerleader for the band, they determinedly engage with the audience.
The audience throws love back at Tony Allen and his band. Everyone is in front of the stage shaking their stuff, some a few more refreshed than others (particularly the three gentlemen who sway and collide with each other, swiftly producing their own slippery dance floor oasis of lager in which they splash).
The music starts off light and poppy, but slowly turns into extended pieces of seriously rhythmic Afrobeat, similar to the seething jazz-funk of Miles Davis’s seventies period. The only problem comes with the (over)occasional tendency of one of the guitarists to get into a bit of overwrought Santana style axe twiddle.
For the few who came along this evening, they were rewarded with an exemplary performance from a true legend of African music. It’s no surprise that Allen and his band should still produce a fantastic show for such a minimal audience. As Allen says, during one song intro, “Every day should be celebrated. So every day becomes a celebration”.