Review: Scott Bradlee and Postmodern Jukebox at Anson Rooms, Bristol

Scott Bradlee and Postmodern Jukebox
Anson Rooms, Bristol
Sunday 15th December, 2015
£17.50 entrance.

Scott Bradlee has been on my radar for a while now – I think the first video of his I saw was his cover of “Beauty and a Beat” originally by Nicki Minaj and Justin Beiber. He released videos every Tuesday which I have eagerly awaited and also in 2014 released a number of albums and announced a European tour.

Naturally, I booked tickets. Some confusion happened over the apparent changing of location (from The Thekla to The Anson Rooms) but come 7pm I rocked up to the queue with a rather varied mix of ages and types of people waiting – a couple in front of me discussing school homework to a couple behind me probably in their late 50s who told be me a relation had seen Bradlee a few days earlier and compaired the show to that on an equal level of Beyonces, which set the bar somewhat high.

Safe to say, after the intro act by the LA Follies, Bradlee and his band and guests delivered in the bucketfull. MC’d and hosted by Mykal Kilgore (video of his cover of “The Greatest Love of All” with PMJ) he introduced a number of guests, including Casey Abrams (Stacy’s Mom) on double bass, Ariana Savalas, with a wicked sense of humour performing a sexy, sultry version of “No Diggity” and Morgan James. Kilgore was a superb host, even dealing with a heckler superbly – not the place I would have expected a heckler to be honest. James appeared on a number of songs, including the awe-inspiring version of “Take Me to Church” which, now listening to the YouTube version, is a bit disappointing compared to hearing it live – more about that shortly. Christopher Erk, tap dancer, also appeared throughout the show – pulling some impressive faces and showing some superb footwork. Tim Kubart (better known as Tambourine Guy) ran around like he’d be electrified. One member of the audience had his day made when Tim pulled him up on stage and gave him his own tambourine to go crazy with. To the surprised and delight of everyone, he even pulled off a backflip when on stage.

Maps (Maroon Five) and Womanizer (Britney Spears) were covered, both original songs I didn’t really have much time for, but Postmodern Jukebox, as with many other songs, made them better than the original.

Another song I wasn’t really a fan of originally was Hoziers’ Take Me to Church performed, as mentioned, by Morgan James solo with Bradlee on piano. The auditorium was completely silent, leaving James to show her superb voice off – completely electrifying and I look forward to seeing more of her in the future.

Bradlee, for the most part, stayed behind his piano, apart from his “audience selfie” he has been known for at his shows. He took suggestions from the audience and did a fantastic 5-song piano mash-up including Queen (everyone apparently says Queen) and Tom Jones and Adele.

The night was rounded off by “All about that Bass” and “Shake it off” – the latter which was so, so much better than expected and had everyone boogieing away before the show ended, all too soon.

The evening was marred only slightly by the over-zealous security team of the Anson Rooms – either poor communication or one of the guards having a bad day sent the people queuing for the cloackroom at the end from side to side of the rooms and when challenged called for backup. For a cloakroom? Jeeze. Also, there were no photos during the meet and greet, autographs only, but as the meet and greet was an unexpected surprise anyway I’m not going to complain – I shook Bradlee’s hand and thanked him for the evening. Also got my ticket autographed by the whole group 😀 It would have also been nice to see Robyn Adele Anderson (appearing in a lot of their earlier videos) but she wasn’t touring with them. Maybe next time.

All in all, an utterly fantastic evening. They said they’d come back to Bristol, and I look forward for when they do. We might even have our new arena by then. That would be something.

SUPERB. 9.8/10