Live Review: Beardyman

Beardyman's (aka Darren Foreman) rig is an impressive spaghetti junction made up of what looks like one microphone, five iPads, a Novation Launchpad, a MIDI keyboard and three different laptops! From this giant mess of cabling and electronics he builds an insane set from little more than his own imagination and the sounds coming from his mouth. He has a genius ability to combine singing, beatboxing, live looping and sample manipulation while dancing and throwing quips at the audience.

It is quite obvious that Foreman's act has been honed as part of his touring Fringe show One Album Per Hour. The set was equal parts comedy, rave and variety show with stories, physical comedy and mime thrown in for good measure. Very few acts could mix jokes about blending crying babies into a protein shake with beatboxed drum'n'bass.

In terms of musical ground covered, think of a genre: it was covered. Dubstep, check. Gabber, check. Techno, check. Doo-wop and scat, check. It was mixed almost effortlessly, even while technical difficulties were occurring on stage and a little impromptu tech support had to be performed.

This was a show that had the crowd dancing while Foreman manically jumped from genre to genre, calling out to the crowd to dance and crouch and jump like an insane conductor. The show finally finished with reverse musical statues. No music, everyone dancing like crazy and freezing when the sound came back on. That was a definite first for us all I think.