Mammal Hands
Our night began with a trip to Byron Burgers, who had generously offered Outline the chance to sample some of their food on their opening weekend. I’m pleased to to be able to report the burgers were both delicious and sizeable, and the ambience was just what is to be expected from a modern high end burger joint. Top marks to the staff too for being so unfailingly polite.
Full of burgers we then headed down to the Arts Centre to join the rest of the early birds in the hall for support act Tom Moore’s Automatic Trio. It’s hard to explain how I felt about Tom Moore but I think the best word to use is interesting. He was on his own playing some very soothing violin with another two string instruments that had been cleverly automated using a bike wheel and a motor. He had most of the audience engaged through not only listening to the ambient sounds that were coming from the stage but just watching the animatronic instruments play themselves. We only got a half an hour set from the Automatic Trio but I feel that was just enough to get us ready for what we had all been waiting for.
After seeing Mammal Hands last year I knew that tonight was definitely going to be a must on the calendar. They blew me away then, and completely opened my eyes to just how good live jazz can be, and what makes it even better is that they are Norwich born and bred. So it’s fair to say I was excited to see what they were going to present for us this year. They’ve also come off the back of their first American dates so I was hoping they were going to be like a well oiled machine.
As soon as Mammal Hands started playing I straight away remembered why I had loved them so much last year. Just the authenticity with which they play, and their incredible musicianship when on stage. And all of three of them are such great musicians; Jordan on the sax engineers the sound and plays superbly with real conviction. His brother Nick on piano plays beautifully and had a memorable solo with Jesse the drummer who is so in tune with the music and orchestrates the rest of the band. They have definitely come along since I saw them last year. More confidence, more music and somehow they managed to make it look even more easy. The packed Arts Centre was loving it and giving the band hearty well deserved applause at the end of each of their fantastic songs. It was great to hear 2016 album Floa and we even got a song which they had never played live before.
Although I perhaps didn’t enjoy Mammal Hands quite as much as I did last year, I still loved all of the hour and a half set. I would of just liked it to have been louder to fully immerse myself in the wonders of their music and to find the awe with which I watched them with last year. But nonetheless it was still another great night of live music at the Arts Centre and Mammal Hands certainly did themselves proud.
