c LuMsY are essentially a 3-piece outfit, with a unique sound based broadly on a mix of Reggae, Rock, Blues and Jazz influences. Recently they’ve been doing some gigs as an 8-piece, with a keyboard player and a 4-piece brass section. This we had to see, and the opportunity to witness the team in action at Mr Wolf’s was too good to pass up.

For those of you who don’t know Mr Wolf’s Noodle Bar, it not so much a restaurant as a venue that serves speciality food and drinks, and it’s laid out with the food and drink at one end as you go in, with the performance area at the other end, and an eating/dancing area in between. Anyway we got ourselves a pint of Red Stripe and a Japanese Lager and set up camp on one of the tables near the front.

The cLuMsY core unit of Joel, Siggy and Patch got themselves set up with Toby Field their keyboardist tucked in behind. The ‘cLuMsY Horns’ (Trumpet: Alex Fricker , Tenor Sax: Christian Rees, Alto Sax: Sophie Stockham and Trombone: Liam Treasure) managed to wedge themselves into a space to the right of the stage.

cLuMsY’s set list was of course dominated by songs from their superb self-produced album ‘Felt Tip Philosophies’. They launched straight into ‘Melody’ which started off with Joel’s distinctive vocals, plus guitar, building up to include first Patch, then Siggy with the trademark 3-part harmonies and then the entire 8-piece kicked in. That was followed by ‘Bothered’ before they applied the cLuMsY treatment to Bill Withers’ ‘B’Ain’t No Sunshine’, including a rather nifty a’cappella section at the end from a Sublime song.

The whole atmosphere was warming up nicely and by now there were about 60 in the audience, not a bad fan base around these parts. cLuMsY interact beautifully with the crowd and there was some good banter going on between the band members and the audience. Siggy even tried out some of his jokes…..

Back to the album with ‘Fruitless’, ‘Ship Of Fools’, their first downbeat number, with a reggae feel about it. After introducing the cLuMsY horns the next song ‘All Petered Out’ was dedicated to Leena, one of their students from the mentoring project REMIX, for which cLuMsY hold weekly songwriting workshops in the Colston Hall (Saturdays 10-12). She has just finished treatment for Leukaemia.

Nadine Gingell was in the audience - she was another REMIX student. Now she's regularly gigging around Bristol. Her current band is The Soul Karate Space Orchestra. cLuMsY have recorded some of her material, and co-written some too.

‘Hecticity’ from Felt Tip Philosophies was next, then Joel gave his guitar some serious abuse during the strum-heavy ‘Genie’ which a distinct eastern feel about the chord progressions.

After a quick break and some more banter, they launched into ‘All Day today and Yesterday (it rained)’ which has that distinctive discordant piano in the background. Near the end of that song one of the strings on Joel’s guitar broke, but he carried on into the second cover of the evening, introduced by a sax solo from Sophie, ‘Artibella’.

After that Joel had to fix his guitar, so we were treated(?) to some more of Siggy’s jokes plus some banter then a merciful comedy interlude from Liam on trombone. Back to the album for the last two tracks of the evening – ‘Can’t see Nothin’ and the foot stompin’ almost spiritual version of ‘All the Way Home’ (from the Spinal Tap soundtrack) to finish.

By this time the audience had grown to over 80, most of whom seemed to be screaming for more at the end. Sadly though, cLuMsY had to make way for the headliner of the evening, which also meant our table was removed as the place filled up.

We decided to hang on for FoE (Freedom Of Expression) to see what they were like. Wow, are we glad we did. A 7-piece, this time from Liverpool/Wales/Spain/France, playing for their first time in Bristol. Where cLuMsY is reggae/jazz/rock driven, this was a Hiphop/rap/jazz/Reggae outfit, driven mainly by the frontman Bob and rapper Keji, with some superb backing from keyboardist Xavier, bassist Robbie, stunning drumming from Nick, and electronica/knob twiddling by K.I.E. There was also a producer hunched over a console in the back.

We managed to get ourselves closer to the stage and slightly off to the left, which gave us a good view of the band without too many heads in the way. By this time the crowd was up to the 100 mark.

Almost straight away, everyone up front was dancing to the opening numbers, ‘Obligation’ and ‘Where Are you Now’ both with a jazz/funk feel with a bit of hip hop thrown in. The sound moved sharply towards Reggae with a bit of Hip Hop fused in for ‘Baby Bomb’, then an upbeat version of ‘escapism’. Things progressed nicely along those lines for the rest of a real danceable evening.

The lead mic always looked a bit vulnerable stuck out into the dancing audience, and it did get a couple of accidental kicks. It was FoE’s keyboard that came off worst though when a passing drunk tripped over and sent it flying. At least by then FoE had finished their set!

Overall impression of FoE is a really tight driven band, with everyone knowing exactly what they are meant to be doing. Aside from the superb and complex sounds they’ve got an excellent stage presence, helped by the two leads handling the audience interaction. If they’re ever in Bristol again, we’re there!

So, overall a fantastic night with two very different bands, both loving what they do and being really good at it. Both unsigned, and both hugely better than the crap we hear on the radio – but don’t get me started…..

Kev&Chris@BristolBands.com