Jamie Cullum‘s Royal Festival Hall show was one of the very first concerts of this year’s LJF to sell out, and it also clearly brought back happy memories for Cullum himself. The crucial early turning-point in his career was in the winter of 2002/3 and he reminisced that the RFH had been the first big hall he ever sold out.
Two decades and more on from that, what Jamie Cullum and his whole crew do so well is to spread a positive vibe wherever they go. And if an experienced Cullumologist is thinking that age will have finally dissuaded him from jumping so energetically off the Yamaha piano, arms akimbo as they ever were, all that is required of us as an audience is to be patient: wait for it and it does happen.
Earlier he had also jumped off the stage, as the cue to do a major walkaround of the hall, even stopping off at Stalls T16 to shake the hand of your humble reporter of this great occasion.
The Cullum songbook, full of familiar gems, just seems to flow effortlessly from this seasoned band. The arrivals of crew onstage to swap and move instruments around – or at one point to pick up the teasingly discarded Cullum jacket – is seamlessly professional. Nothing gets in the way of communicating a friendly and open-hearted vibe which the audience picks up with ease. To have the whole band singing “Save Your Soul” around the piano was a clear expression of a shared positive spirit in the band. The newest name to me in this band is the highly adaptable Mike Lesirge. He noticeably played some great skronk baritone in the loud closing sequence, but is clearly already doing a lot more throughout the show.
A surgical procedure on my left foot this morning, a super gig earlier in the evening from Jasper Hoiby’s trio….and a handshake during the show from one of the thoroughly nicest stars there is. It really has been quite a day.
SET LIST
I Get a Kick out of You
Get Your Away / What I’d say/ Work of Art
These are the Days
Everybody Wants to be a Cat with bass solo, then trumpet solo
Next Year Baby
Mankind
Please Please Please (Sabrina Carpenter)
Song Society
Save your soul – whole band round the piano singing
Taller
20 Something
Age of Anxiety
When I get Famous
Gong/Gong
Sinnerman
You and me are gone/Killing in the name of/Hang your Lights
Mixtape
—————————
Encore – All at Sea
BAND :
Jamie Cullum
Loz Garratt – bass
Brad Webb – drums
Tom Varrall – guitar
Mike Lesirge – sax/ keys
Rory Simmons – trumpet
Aisha Stewart, Marc Henderson – vocals
with thanks to Jamie Cullum’s team for filling in gaps in these lists
