The early show on Wednesday, February 13th was the third overall during Thundercat’s six night, fourteen show residency at New York City’s legendary Blue Note. The band was already in peak form, letting it all hang out while dazzling the packed house.
Even with all of these shows booked and sold out, a line waited outside in freezing temperatures for the slim chance to obtain standing room access, a testament to his popularity and talent. Before taking the stage however his friend Zack Fox did a twenty-minute unannounced stand-up comedy act which fell flat.
Once set up on stage though, the musicians’ adventurous sounds were a torrent as keyboardist Dennis Hamm and drummer Justin Brown supported Stephen Bruner aka Thundercat in rousing fashion. Opening with “Song For The Dead” the group only briefly eased into the evening before unique bass runs escaped Bruner’s Ibanez six-stringed monster. The spaced-out jam was dedicated to Mac Miller as the trio powerfully opened the night with their mix of fusion and interstellar jazzy funk rock.
When Bruner has backed up other artists in the past (like Snoop Dogg) he has been asked if he could make his bass sound more like a bass, but that is not his true talent. The sounds he creates are cosmic and run the gamut from P-Funk bubble popping to metallic thunder with electro flights of fancy weaving in and out of everything. There were overloads of sounds and blinding cascades of notes flung at the audience which could be overwhelming however Brown and Hamm augmented the maestro, matching the frontman step for step helping craft brilliant audio adventures.
“Jethro” displayed a warped/warbling intro before the glorious falsetto singing from Bruner before delivering a mix of Jimi Hendrix “Machine Gun” level riffing and Charlie Hunter smooth jazz cool. The main man sang an ode to his namesake with “A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite II)” imagining how cool it is to be a cat while Hamm’s piano solo shined bright. “Daylight” was the trio’s peak for this show as it found Hamm delivering fluid organ lounge fills while Brown slammed heavy on drums, all linked together by the frantic fretwork from Thundercat as he bridged the sonic gaps spectacularly.
The most restrained number “Them Changes” locked in with a slippery groove and got the sold-out house bopping their heads with Browns beat. The trio could have ended there and no one would have left wanting, however they fired it back up for closer “Lone Wolf and Cub” which morphed into a prog-rock beast in the vein of tripped out Frank Zappa finishing off the triumphant set. While Thundercat has found studio and sideman success, nothing on Drunk or elsewhere can touch this trio’s onstage interplay; here’s hoping a live record comes from this thriving Blue Note stand.
