My experience of Jah Wobble extends mainly to his work with PIL from 1978-1980 (playing and collaborating on their first two albums) where he drew on punk’s dub influences to help mould the sound of the celebrated post punk outfit. Since parting company with John Lydon, Wobble (real name John Wardle) has continued to draw inspiration from dub, rock and world music, releasing no less than 61 albums and collaborating with a diverse range of artists from Brian Eno, The Edge, Bjork, Primal Scream and Sinead O’Connor to dance acts including the Orb, the Shamen, Andrew Weatherall, Paul Oakenfold, Francois Kevorkian and Bomb the Bass.
While hard to pigeonhole and certainly pretty diverse in terms of style, Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart are more of a traditional rock band compared to some of his more experimental solo work and have been playing and recording in numerous incarnations since 1982, releasing their first album in 1990. This current line-up comprises of Wobble on bass & vocals, George King on keyboards, Martin Chung on guitar and Marc Layton Bennet on drums. Having not done any advance listening before this gig at Exeter’s Cavern, I was really unsure of what to expect from the band on the night. With no warm-up act to kick things off, the four-piece arrived on stage to a decent-sized crowd of loyal fans and launched into a freestyle jazz-rock song that had me wondering if this was going to be the template for the rest of the set. I like jazz, but it’s not necessarily what I was hoping for all night.
Wobble closed the song by declaring that he personally dislikes jazz, which answered my question. Not that people seemed to mind, most were dancing to it. Keyboardist George King is a jazz pianist which might explain why there is a jazz flavour to some of the band’s material, although guitarist Martin Chung clearly knows his way around a fretboard and is also versatile enough to veer into jazz territory when it suits.
The rest of the set encompassed a mix of what to me sounded like bluesy and psychedelic prog rock, at times venturing into middle-eastern territory with touches of slide-guitar which was intriguing to watch as guitarist “Chungy” (as Wobble affectionately calls him) went to town on his numerous extended improvs. Other instrumentation was provided via backing tracks, with Wobble also playing some percussion alongside the drummer in some parts of the set.
I couldn’t name a lot of the set list although I was able to identify covers of 60’s reggae staple Harry J Allstars ‘Liquidator’, Fleetwood Mac’s ‘The Chain’ (the rockier second half of), an instrumental of PIL’s ‘Poptones’ and John Barry’s ‘Midnight Cowboy’ theme (a more up-tempo jazzy rock version, since the original is a standard score).
Wobble is a charismatic frontman, whether it’s introducing his band, engaging in banter with the crowd, hamming it up with Shakesperean references (which went over most people’s heads in Exeter, myself included) or frantically strumming basslines over the band’s avant-garde rock. Invaders of the Heart aren’t about big songs or anthemic singalong moments (Wobble isn’t really a singer per se) and as such, more compact venues like the Cavern with its low ceilings and dense acoustics definitely suit their style.
It’s hard to know what else to say about the gig. It wasn’t what I expected but that’s not a bad thing - if anything I think it opened up my horizons to things I didn’t know I liked, such as middle eastern music, slide guitar in a psychedelic rock set, or rocky covers of John Barry soundtracks.
In the end, Jah Wobble and the Invaders of the Heart offered a journey to places I hadn’t planned on visiting. From dub-infused psychedelia to jazz-tinged rock and unexpected cinematic detours, the night was a reminder that musical boundaries are there to be blurred. It may not have been what I expected, but it was exactly what I needed: a nudge toward new sounds, new textures, and a deeper appreciation for Wobble’s ever-evolving musical universe.
Review by Joe Taylor
