Jorts! Loads of them. Some Vans, a few Converse, plenty of adidas. Pork pie hats, baseball caps, t-shirts aplenty – that’s the guys, course. At least some of the women dressed up to see slick NYC Rock-Rap-Funk gangsters Fun Lovin’ Criminals at the Powerstation last night.
Sure, it’s summer – she was a warm one, kids – but despite the bands’ own aesthetic, and we’ll get to that, their limelight years being late 90s/early 2000s, meant that was also the crowd vibe. (I searched in vain for a skateboard…)
The gentleman in the exquisite white shirt, rolled up pants and loafers, pork pie hat perfectly plonked, who grooved mesmerizingly while spilling neither of the two drinks he held. Big ups to you sir. You captured the vibe perfectly.
These boys are slick, remember.
MC Slave, he of Fat Freddy’s fame, warmed us up perfectly, with a beautifully balanced DJ set cleverly mixed: to hear The Honeydrippers 1973 Funk hit Impeach the President booming out the bins was a joy to behold, and perhaps, given the state of the world, a not-so-subtle piece of messaging.
With a theatrical roadie removal of the sheets covering Frank Benbini’s drums and most of Brian Leiser’s keyboard/electronics set up, (which he later referred to as my R2D2 thing) and a thunderous 2001: A Space Odyssey, out they came, them Fun Lovin’ Criminals.
Like their music, they are a curious sartorial soup –Frank Benbini (Mark Reid to his old mates) is all black shirt, bucket hat and shades, as if auditioning to join Fat Freddy perhaps, a massive cross bouncing on his not inconsiderable frontage, while recent addition Niam Cortazzi looks like he could be playing guitar in arch hipsters Interpol.
The only remaining founding member, Brian Leiser, is the vocal focal point, in his Blues Brothers suit ‘n’ shades and blindingly white adidas trainers. Cortazzi’s feet were similarly clad; visually and aurally there was more than an echo of Run DMC to FLC, a welcome reminder to these ears of Times Long Passed.
They started with their eponymous hit, the crowd who had straggled in to eventually provide a not-far-from-full-house were jumpin’ around, to quote the Kriss Kross hit Slave had played earlier.
Like the original band’s original home, NYC, (and we’ll get to the personnel permutations later) FLC are a potpourri of styles and shapes, influences and outpourings. They Rock, they Rap, they groove out, they funk it up. And, with Leiser and Benbini doing the Belushi and Ackroyd thing, they ham it up too. Often poking fun at themselves, as much as anyone else.
Anyone here born in 1972? asks Leiser – a predictable roar ensues. Uh, maybe, for me, 1872! he quips, before moving into a more recent addition to the FLC songbook, indeed called 1972.
Lovers Rock, nothing remotely to do with the Sade song of the same name, another more recent groover, was also sweetly and smoothly enjoyable, more west coast than east. Those aside, what we get is the, you know, Bag of Hits, as the compilation was called – the ones the faithful came to see: Smoke ‘Em, Run Daddy Run, a raucous King of New York and an eerily weedy Loco.
After a brief staged exit stage left, about an hour in, they sidled back refreshed, no doubt, and delivered the tremendous trio: Scooby Snacks, Love Unlimited, and Big Night Out, the latter replete with the slow bit extended to allow/enable the entire crowd to wave their hands in the air and sing the unlikely chant, Can’t you see? Can’t you see? / I got a supermodel on my D.
Jeez, it’s like #metoo never happened. And the women sang as loudly as the men. A curious conclusion.
And they are a curiosity, this band. Their public spat with original singer and lyricist Huey Morgan about who really owns the songs, and the sound shouldn’t be relevant here. Only, while Leiser was indeed an original Criminal, and with his multi-instrumentalist smarts and fine vocalising, is a wonderful entertainer, some of those early songs do seem a pale imitation without Morgan’s Marlboro-induced husky growl.
Leiser’s black box and dials triggered samples/backing tracks of some of the key elements of the bigger hits, which isn’t cheating but which did add to that slight disconcerting vibe, as if they couldn’t leave out the samples and just wing it, live.
And while all the references, the whole gritty streetwise shtick is mucho Manhattan, Cortazzi and Benbini are from Leicester, oop Norf mate, so when the latter raps his between song patter, we came here for the food and the women…and to visit the White Lady again! the accent and delivery is slightly disarming.
You expect Mid-town but instead get Midlands. Morgan spat that this incarnation was a tribute band which is both vicious and inaccurate, but it does, occasionally, feel imitative, a slight shadow of What Used to Be.
That unfortunate segue out of the way, they were bloody fantastic, OK? The slick schtick hides remarkable musicianship.
Benbini is one of those drummers who makes it look effortless, yet was pulling patterns, fills and cross-sticked shenanigans like it was nuthin’, often managing all that one-handed while he supped a refreshing beverage.
Lieser was a marvel – keyboard bass, electric piano/synth parts delivered deftly, trumpet, harmonica, bass, and flawless rapping and singing that, like Benbini, clearly is practiced intensely for it to look so casual.
Cortazzi is a beautiful guitarist who, by dint of the combo he’s landed in, has to play a panoply of parts and styles, often in the same song, and delivers all of that with space and class, and gritty, grungy Rock when required. They might be fun lovin’, but they’re hard working, too.
They said all the right things,– how much they loved Auckland, were big fans of Fat Freddy’s, were amped that there was a Black Seed in the front row (cue embarrassing spotlight moment for said Seed), but, while you expect such comments, like the whole show, the humour and slight predictability of some of the material was a tongue in cheek veneer that couldn’t hide the fact that this was a well-grooved, class act, with a very high hit ratio in their grab-bag of songs, delivered with warmth, humour, and high-level Rock’ n’ roll energy.
Big ups to promoters Plus 1, Kurt Shanks and crew, for bringing these kinds of acts to our shores (they were responsible for the fab Tony Hadley show at the same venue the night prior) – while the arena shows with their big screens and groaning merch tables are also a much-needed attraction to the gig-going population who has been a bit starved of material during and post-COVID.
These not-quite-a-thousand punters at a venue where you don’t need a screen to see the players, and feel instantly connected to them and the material, provide the opportunity for a good band to really win you over.
The Fun Lovin’ Criminals did that in spades. Bloody good night all round!
Michael Larsen
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Fun Lovin’ Criminals
