The Kora brothers do their thing

Bobbie, Jake and I took Juliet and Louise to go and see New Zealand funk/reggae/rock band Kora last night, so named because that’s the surname of the four brothers in the band (and there’s also one “token white dude from Wainuiomata” who played bass and keyboards).

They were stormingly good. Everyone played pretty much every instrument. Almost everyone was a lead vocalist. The technical skill and polish was astonishing, and when they brought the funk, it was Parliament heavy.

Small crowd of really enthusiastic punters, and the guys put on an amazing show. I’d heard they were good live, but they were even better than I was expecting. All of the highlights from the album with a few really extended grooves and a drum and bass workout for good measure.

They finished the set with ‘Flow’ - which I managed to capture on video (and it turned out better than I’d hoped):

An encore was obligatory, and they didn’t disappoint.

Two support acts. Beatboxer and ‘live-looper’ Red was pretty astonishingly good. The Tivoli were sort of generic. It’s fine to sound like another band, of course. They sounded like an entire category of music. No distinguishing features.

But all in all, an awesome night. Shame there were only about 30 people there to see it. Next time - go.