Despite a fairly steep ticket price, a reasonable crowd has come out to the Thekla to see the MagicBand on a Sunday night; one assumes nobody here cares much who is going to make The X Factor final. For some reason it’s almost an entirely male audience but you can sort out what that means regarding the psychological differences between the sexes yourself. After all, this isn’t an AC/DC gig. Like their audience, the Magic Band are old enough to know that it’s a school night and hit the stage at half eight before delivering just over two hours of what the Magic Band, and only the Magic Band, do. If you’re wondering what exactly that is then you need to know this is the once more reformed backing band of Don Van Vliet, or as you probably better know him, Captain Beefheart. The Magic Band initially reformed sans the then retired Captain back in 2002 and have toured on and off since, disintegrating and reforming along the way. Don Van Vliet’s health problems meant that we were never likely to see him fronting the band ever again but his death last year has made sure that this is the closest you will come to seeing the band in its sixties and seventies glory. And there really is no-one like the Magic Band. Beefheart’s sound was hard to describe; strange avant-garde blues with little in the way references for the casual listener. But when you get it, it’s a thing of beauty; like nothing else you’ve ever heard. Tonight the band are Feelers Rebo and Eric Klerks on guitars, Rockette Morton on bass, and John “Drumbo” French on vocals, harmonica and drums. Sadly Drumbo never actually tells us the name of whoever it was on drums while he is doing the fronting but we’ll have to forgive him. You see, without the Captain, it is easy to imagine that the whole thing wouldn’t work; the presence of that mighty bellowing voice and his earthy charisma were an essential focus to the otherwise inapproachable sound. But Drumbo has been a revelation since the Magic Band’s reformation and tonight is no exception. He hollers and fills the stage like the Captain used to, while the band tear through what is the nearest to a greatest hits package as they’ll ever get. LowYo Yo Stuff, Alice in Blunderland, Floppy Boot Stomp, Moonlight on Vermont all build to the climax of the jitter-inducing Electricity and big guitar sound of Big-Eyed Beansfrom Venus; all your favourites (assuming this is your kind of thing) are here. The sound is aggressive and mercurial and if Drumbo comes across like a demented preacher then he is preaching to the converted anyway. There is no true encore despite the audience reaction; just Drumbo “performing” one of the Captain’s poems in his inevitable style. They could have continued but we’re sent home at a reasonable hour to rise early to face a world that is all the richer for having the Magic Band in it. Long may they continue.
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