Fanfare Ciocarlia, Dome Concert Hall, Brighton, May 17

9:04am Monday 19th May 2008

With a cry of "Ay ay ay ay!", one of the fastest and most storming brass bands in the world took to the Dome stage.

The 12-piece ensemble are from a small gypsy village in the north east of Romania where they developed their distinctive, breakneck style.

It takes a while to figure out just how to dance to this irresistible but rapid gypsy swing. The collective solution seemed to be jumping, clapping and shouting "hup, hup, hup!".

They attacked each song with such furious finger work that it felt less like a world music concert and more like rock and roll - particularly when covering Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild.

The award-winning collective had the audience flinging themselves around to wild spirited songs from previous albums such as Gili Garabdi and Queens And Kings.

It's thanks to German sound engineer Henry Ernst that this astonishing Balkan brass band have come to light. He discovered he musicians while visiting Romania and convinced them to form a band. Ernst now runs their record label Asphalt Tango.

Support came from the blind violinist Tcha Limberger and his Budapest Gypsy Orchestra.

Limberger comes from a famous family of manouche musicians steeped in the gypsy jazz legacy of Django Reinhardt.

Although Belgian, he was drawn to Hungarian music from an early age and spent three years studying its roots in Budapest.

Playing with his handpicked ensemble, their intense string arrangements were less danceable but equally powerful.

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