Live Review: Jungle, Georgia

“We've all had that band where you're sitting in a car, and you're on holiday and the sun is shining and you're in a rental car, a tune comes on the radio. Your perception to it is, ‘Oh my God! What's this tune?'," Tom McFarland told The Music following the release of album number two, For Ever. It’s a marriage of music and environment said the Jungle frontman, and it’s something Brisbane fans got to experience live at The Tivoli during the band’s return to the country.

First though London singer-songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Georgia wows the crowd with her one-woman-band schtick, cementing her status on many a ‘ones to watch’ list. It’s a short set but one that piques the interest of the slowly building crowd. A crowd that is limbering up and stretching their dance muscles ahead of a night of grooving.

Jungle have proven themselves as a live band, there’s no questions there. Touring consistently since the release of their self-titled debut will do that, and tonight the British soul collective waste no time in announcing their arrival. The room’s at full capacity and the members find their stage marks, poised and ready to begin. It’s a well-rehearsed and slick production, something one might argue distracts from the soul of their music, but the energy reverberating around The Tivoli is electric. It feeds the crowd and band alike; a symbiosis of groove.

Tracks from both albums melt into each other seamlessly, we overhear one fan whispering to her friend, “It’s just banger after banger.” Frontmen McFarland and Josh Lloyd-Watson are having a ball orchestrating the collective boogie centre stage and Andro Cowperthwaite and Rudi Salmon are the epitome of cool. The lighting is spectacular; on top of their sonic aesthetic, Jungle have created a trademark look not easily forgotten. Everything from the rhythmic drumming in opener Smile to the forever FIFA Busy Earnin' just works. 

When you go to a Jungle show, what you see is what you get. It’s music made for dancing and dance is what Brisbane did.