★★★★
For anyone who has let the music of Roy Ayres enhance their summer months, or banish the winter blues with his warm light -filled sound over the last few decades, this was a real treat.
His laid-back jazz funk style is relaxed but with a drive, and when he plays the songs live the jazz side really comes through. Only the second number into the set and he was playing perhaps his best known and much loved song, Everybody Loves The Sunshine; a spinetingling moment for many of the devoted audience.
I can’t remember so many phones going up to record a song. Like the tunes to follow, the band stretched it into a beautiful meandering acid-jazz jam with large sections of instrumental, Ayres playing his trademark vibraphone, a kind of funky xylophone, like an old master at ease and on point.
Although playing and singing for shorter periods than he might have done 20 years ago this didn’t detract at all, and the band carried the energy through very well. With epic versions of his classics, Running Away and Searching, we were transported through the mind and soul of a musical legend.
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