“It’s one o’clock in the morning, man. Who’s watching the cats?!” shrieked Jacob Lusk last night at Soho’s Ronnie Scott’s, as he and his Gabriels bandmates delivered what went down, in my books, as one of London’s best gigs in years.
Moody and melancholy opening numbers crescendo-d into glorious solos as Lusk punctuated his set with camp, effusive banter, getting the audience to ‘oo-lala’ in lieu of any backup singers on his band’s hit song, Blame.
“We have no back-up tonight,” Lusk cooed. “So I’m gonna need y’all to sing along with me.” He was a charismatic and compelling stage presence, swanning in to join the band for their opening number in a white suit. “When I was young I wanted to be the Beyoncé in my own Destiny’s Child,” he cackles in between songs. “Guess what! Now I am!” No wonder Diana Ross and Elton John adore him.
As Lusk’s vocal runs cascaded from one octave to the next, he got to the heart of an often tough and demure crowd. Melisma may be a tired trope in R&B and soul (thanks, Mariah) but last night Lusk showed us that, in painfully talented hands, there is simply nothing like it to stir emotion or wow an audience.
Besides the singer’s unimpeachable technique, his voice itself is the stuff of dreams: silky, poignant, and infused with the same kind of hope and sadness which – held in tandem – might remind you of Nina Simone.
A heavily fêted band like Gabriels gracing the closing slot at Ronnie’s in Wednesday’s wee hours is a rare and special occasion. It’s BRITs week, and last night’s concert was raising money for Warchild, which has been putting big names into intimate venues since 2009, as part of a campaign to support children whose lives have been torn apart by war.
There was no doom or gloom to Gabriels’ set, but the faith and urgency with which they sang – and paying tribute to the giants that came before them, like Simone (their cover of I Put A Spell On You was sublime) or Aretha Franklin (Amazing Grace) – nodded to the role music has played in bringing people together for the greater good.
And Gabriels are taking that tradition into the 2020s, infusing gospel with jazz, doo wop, and their own flair for the dramatic.
In the world’s great cultural capitals, there are occasionally rare shows that feel like they may well end up in the history books; in London, thanks to Sault, and now Gabriels, we’ve been lucky to get two in rapid succession.
