Report: Rockfeedback @ iTunes Festival Night 28 Amadou & Mariam, 28/7/09
4/5
By: Matt Tomiak
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This year, Rockfeedback is delighted to be the official blog partner for the rather exciting iTunes Festival, taking place at London’s Roundhouse every night in July. Over the course of the festival, we’ll not be missing a night, delivering morning-after reports on everyone from Oasis and Bloc Party to Franz Ferdinand and Kasabian playing intimate sets to fans lucky enough to have won tickets to the shows.
Having met at a school for the blind in the Malian capital of Bamako in the late 1970s, vocalist Mariam Doumbia and guitar player Amadou Bagayoko’s back story kind of surpasses the traditional route of acquiring band mates by sticking an ad in the back of Melody Maker.
Appropriately enough for an ensemble bringing the World Music to Camden, this is perhaps the most diverse audience at the Roundhouse of the festival series thus far. Right-on families with young kids, urbane French ex-pats, hip Afrophiles –a carnivalesque coming together of disparate music-lovers. The feigned, leering machismo of the notorious Oasis gig here exactly a week ago seems light years away (although maybe Liam and Noel could do with employing a couple of sequin-clad dancers like these guys do to liven up their set?).
The funky, upbeat opener ‘Welcome to Mali’, the title track from the couple’s breakthrough 2008 album of the same name establishes the precedent for a jubilant night, with the pulsating affirmation of ‘Africa’ another high spot. A guest spot from The Magic Numbers’ Romeo and Michele Stodart underscores current A&M’s indie cachet. A triumphal, unifying delight.
Artists in this article: Amadou & Mariam
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