By Dan O’Farrell.
For music fans of a certain vintage, the name Jah Wobble rings a number of musical bells, but ‘famous bass-players from the post-punk world’ is a ‘Pointless’ category waiting to happen. I stroll into a pleasingly busy Joiners on Friday night armed with a dangerously high level of Wobble-ignorance: I know that he’d played bass on the first two PIL albums (and so was, weirdly, Sid Vicious’ replacement in the John Lyden Musical Universe), that he’d played on the best song on Primal Scream’s ‘Screamadelica’ (Higher Than The Sun’s ‘Dub Symphony section) and, more personally, that he was responsible for one of my favourite 90’s singles: ‘Visions Of You’, featuring a beautiful vocal by Sinead O’Connor. What the current Jah Wobble band was likely to look or sound like, I had no idea. Exciting!
Soon after 8pm, The Invaders of the Heart grace the stage. No support tonight: it’s been made clear that Mr Wobble’s crew will be playing two sets. From the word go. Wobble’s consummate way with an audience is readily apparent: he’s relaxed, funny and charismatic. We are in safe hands.
This doesn’t stop the first song – introduced as ‘9’ – from being a bit of a shock to the system. Whatever my level of ignorance, I came to see dub. I came to see post-punk mixed with world-music beats. The first seven minutes serve me up a thick, challenging slice of ‘jazz-fusion’. I am a 55 year old white man who loves indie-rock, post-punk and folk. I am only allowed to enjoy ‘jazz’ under the strictest of conditions (double-bass, brushed drums, discordant piano, black-and-white photography). I scowl miserably for several minutes until, traitorously, my left foot begins to tap. Curse it. I’m enjoying ‘jazz-funk’ with all the muso-trimmings. Luckily, no-one will ever know.
Throughout these long minutes of my existential, musical identity crisis, Jah Wobble is beaming happily like an unlikely cross between Chas from ‘Chas and Dave’ and a fedora-hatted gangster from a Guy Richie movie. He smiles with the smile of a man who knows that his band is made up of three astonishingly talented musicians, who will always – whatever capricious demands he throws their way – lock-in, groove and vibe until all possible cows have gone home and tried to write reviews of it. It’s a satisfied smile.
The post-punk/dub fan in me is amply fed over the next hour or so. ‘Becoming More Like God’ is served up early – inescapably hypnotic and intoxicating – with ‘Visons of You’ (Sinead appearing via an artfully mixed backing-track) appearing soon after and feeling almost like a religious experience. Interwoven with these Invaders of the Heart classics are some songs from the early PIL years. ‘Public Image’ is played twice: a stately version of the abrasive original – tension embedded in every bruised shard of guitar noise – and then, straight after, in a ‘dub version’, with Wobble instructing sound-man Dan exactly how much delay he needs on his vocals. The whole venue seems to levitate. Better still, the version of ‘Poptones’ that this band delivers – from the moment Wobble emotes an entire Richard III soliloquy at its opening, through the scrawny meat of the song and into excursions into reggae and full-on jam-band jazzing – takes the audience on such a journey that it’s hard to remember where we are by the time it finally slows down to a halt.
Throughout it all, it’s hard to take your eyes off Jah Wobble. He’s a full-on entertainer, pausing his bass-lines every couple of songs to thrash merrily away at his cow-bell and timbales percussion-kit; strutting across the stage to plant himself front-and-centre for particularly lubricious bass-lines; conducting the band with imperious gestures and – every time the music stops – undercutting any potential ‘muso’ pomposity by ribbing the band mercilessly. His favourite foil is the amazingly precise drummer, Marc Layton-Bennett, who receives the roughest on-stage ‘banter’, but also the biggest hug at the end of the night.
The band take a well-earned break after an amazingly intense hour-and-a-bit. When they return for their second set, everything feels looser – more organic than ever. Wobble starts to spend longer and longer sat in his ‘throne’ (a dining chair with a plush, red cushion) and you get the feeling that the band are having endless fun with their ever-more-varied material. Snatches of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’, reggae classic ‘ The Liquidator’ and the theme from ‘Midnight Cowboy’ all intersperse playfully with jazz and dub-infused versions of tunes from the ‘Invaders of the Heart’ back-catalogue, and I start to realise that Jah Wobble can make any tune with a decent bass-line sound like his own work. It’s a genre-defying talent.
Bass-players and drummers talk of being ‘in-the-pocket’ – locking-in to an insistently funky vibe that finds a ‘greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts’ propulsion…the sweet-spot. Consistently, tonight, Wobble not only finds that pocket, he picks the pocket next to it and – whilst you’re searching for your wallet – sews up a whole new pocket on the other arse-cheek of the jeans. Everything he plays is unmistakably ‘him’: that supple, elastic groove that doesn’t need flashy runs or thumb-twanging slap-workouts to make it feel amazing: it just is. There are moments tonight when performers and audience all seem to be transported by the dub-driven power of the music. Euphoria abounds.
Shout-outs must also be due to Wobble’s amazing band: aforementioned drummer Marc Layton-Bennett doesn’t put a stick wrong all night, whilst keys-man George King consistently dazzles with virtuoso-level skills, his fingers an octave-straddling blur. Best of all, guitarist Martin Chung shines brightly with an amazing array of sounds and techniques – from the two-chord quasi-simplicity of Keith Levene-era PIL to the fast-fingered jazz attack of a hyped-up Django Rhinehart. Like any great band, the chemistry that emerges is stronger than any of its individual elements. I have to park my over-thinking brain and just get swept away by it all. Marvellous!
From tonight’s showing, Jah Wobble’s legendary status is unique and well-deserved. No-one else could quite do what he does and the world feels a much better place when you know that he’s still doing it.
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