Jimi Tenor

This was one of those truly awesome, earth-shatteringly brilliant gigs that leaves you sweaty, satiated and eulogising about it to anyone who’ll listen over the following days. Jimi and his five-piece band take to the stage in uniform doctor’s overcoats, and immediately give us the brilliantly cheesy lounge overture of ‘Europa’.

Only one song in, a delegate of the backstage crew emerges from the wings and drapes a glittering cape over a soloing member of the brass section, a la James Brown, and it’s obvious this is going to be something special. Similarly to Beck, Jimi Tenor utilises kitsch music and gauche showmanship not because he wants to take the piss, but because he positively adores such behaviour. He wants to put a smile on your face. And he wants you to shake your ass.

Accompanied by frequently hilarious, handheld DV footage of Dublin shot earlier that day (at one point the cameraman is confronted by an irate manager in the lingerie section of a department store), the next hour-and-a-half is a majestic funk/soul/jazz/techno odyssey, by the end of which the aisles are completely jammed with people dancing.

As you would expect from a man who cites Iggy Pop and Liberace as his favourite performers, there is no let up in the onstage horseplay. Aside from the glittery cape, Jimi takes a camera from his pocket and snaps a shot of his band, and a girl arrives onstage mid-song with a tray of full champagne glasses, inspiring the singer to extemporize lyrics: “It was a hot August night baby… Yeah!” Every track tonight is a highlight, but the pumping techno/jazz freakout of ‘Take Me Home’, the glorious soul of ‘My Mind’ (“My mind is an open book to you honey/You freak my nose wide open”), and the monstrously funky rhythms of ‘Outer Space’ deserve particularly special mention.

The show ends the only (il)logical way it can – a stunning jazz workout which sees the brass section indulging in an all too evidently self-choreographed dance routine, the bassist playing his instrument behind his head, and Jimi doing a keyboard solo with his tongue. They get a standing ovation and deafening calls for more.

One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.