The Brand New Heavies are a band that formed in the mid 1980’s on the back of the rare groove scene in London, they enjoyed phenomenal success in the early 90’s as a forerunner of the Acid Jazz movement and continue to release music and tour the word to this very day. We heard that they were bringing their funky floorshow to Exeter’s Phoenix and wanted to be there to witness the band in action….

I chatted to the guitarist (Sy Bartholomew) from the band a few days ago when they were playing in Croatia and I asked him what we could expect from their live show, he said that there’d be something old and something new and you may even meet the woman of your dreams, I added that I am happily married to which he changed his pitch to “you will be more in love with the person you’re already with”, read on to see if this was true….

Tonight’s show was SOLD OUT, not a rare thing for The Brand New Heavies as they often draw massive audiences wherever they play but even so, it was great to see the Phoenix, in the heart of Exeter buzzing with excitement and anticipation.

We arrived shortly before the doors opened and were surprised to see so many people in the bar, it was easily 3 people thick and meant that we had to ‘double up’ on our orders to save having to repeat the process 15 minutes later, well, that’s what my wife suggested anyway!

The band were due on at 9pm and to fill the gap in the main auditorium, we were treated to a wonderfully uplifting funky DJ set by Sketch (Exeter Phoenix resident house DJ and host of The Sunday Scribble on Phonic FM (every Sunday from 10-12pm in case you were wondering!)).

On the dot of 9pm, the band took to the stage, dressed to kill and clearly ready to party. Sy Bartholomew and Andrew Levy kicked into a groove and Angela Ricci joined them a few bars in to kick off proceedings with ‘People Get Ready’. The stage was full of musicians including a percussionist, a brass section, keyboards and drums, you would have struggled to get many more on there!

Angela took a break midway through the set to allow Sy and Andrew to take the lead and introduce the amazing talents of Bryan Corbett (trumpet) and Richard Beesley (saxophone).

The classics came thick and fast as the night wore on, ‘Never Stop’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘Back to Love’ and ‘Dream on Dreamer’ saw the room lit up with smiling faces who were all dancing and singing along, probably wishing they were back in the 90’s when they first fell in love with the band!

I knew that their biggest hit to date ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ was a cover version but I never knew it was originally performed by an artist called Maria Muldaur who featured the track on her self titled album way back in 1973, regardless, it bought the house down and even saw people up on the balcony grooving along in their seats.

‘Spend Some Time’ saw all of the band taking a few minutes to showcase their skills, Sy providing a killer guitar solo, Andrew, some funky bass work and Matt Steele on keys seemed to have been temporarily taken over by a demon as he produced an incredible jazzy/funky keyboard solo which again, saw the house in raptures.

When I spoke to Sy a few days ago, he said that he felt the band that they have now is possibly the best they have had for a long time and from looking at each of them on stage, you could tell that they were having a great time, the energy was flowing well and it just seemed to gel together as one cohesive unit.

As well as the classics, they played a handful of tracks from their latest album TBNH (available NOW) which, despite not being as well received, still went down really well and no doubt influenced a few people to go and investigate their new work.

After closing the first set with ‘Stay This Way’, the band left the stage to huge applause and after a couple of minutes and chants of “One More Song”, filed back to the stage for an encore. Andrew picked up a beautiful 5 string Warwick bass guitar which was as gold and sparkly as Angela Ricci’s dress. I found out after the show that this was made specifically for Andrew by Warwick in 1993 and took 14 coats of paint and lacquer before it could be classed as ‘finished’ (useful nugget of information there for you folks!)

A member of the audience shouted out ‘Forever’ in an attempt to get it played by the band, Sy heard them and asked why they had suggested that song, it turned out that the couple had chosen this as their ‘first dance’ at their wedding 25 years ago, this pleased Sy no end and he started to sing the song whilst playing the guitar right in front of the couple in the audience which would have no doubt made their day/week/month, even year!

Closing the whole show with ‘Dream Come True’ saw the room split into three parts, all with a different pitched vocal to perform, I’m unsure who won but even so, it was an entertaining end to what was an incredible show!

We chatted to the band after the show and they were all looking forward to having a few days off before the UK show continues in London on 7th November, for more information on their UK tour, check out their social media.  

Setlist

People Get Ready

Never Stop

Sometimes

Back to Love

Dream on Dreamer

These Walls

Stupid Love

Brother Sister

BNH

Midnight at the Oasis

Getaway

Spend Some Time

Stay This Way

Encore

Universe

Dream Come True

Words and Pictures by Steve Muscutt