Caught this show last Friday night. The Bamboos are an 8 piece Melbourne-based funk band, founded by Kiwi born guitarist Lance Ferguson and featuring Kylie Auldist on vocals. They were billed as "Australia's premier funk band" and based on this showing I would be hard-pressed not to concur. They had a great, energetic sound, propelled by Ferguson's driving funk guitar and an extremely tight, grooving rhythm section. I was already reasonably familiar with their stuff (having listened to their albums "Side-Stepper" and "4" several times), but they substantially exceeded my expectations.
I was also very impressed with the venue -- The Manning Bar, nestled in the heart of Sydney University's main Camperdown campus. Great sound, great ambience, cheap(ish) drinks, surrounded by plenty of nubile young uni students -- as well as more than a few fellow aging, leering also-rans. What more could you ask for?
One curiosity that I've now encountered several times in the last couple of shows I've been to: an unusually late start time. The concert was billed as starting at 8:30pm; however, on arriving it turned out to be only the first of two support acts that was kicking off at that time, while the main act weren't due on until 11:00pm. Not a big deal, but it meant that instead of reaching for a beer, I was going for a coffee -- and hoping that I'd still be awake by the time the band came on. So much for being fashionably late -- we were unfashionably, and conspicuously, early.
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