News / / 04.12.12

KINDNESS

HEAVEN, LONDON | NOVEMBER 7TH

Stood upon the balcony in Heaven with a glorious view but some distance from the stage, we thought for not one hot minute that we’d need to put our earplugs in for this show. But within seconds of stella support act Nightslugs taking the stage, we realised that we were very, very wrong. Bass appeared to be dish of the day on this menu, as the duo began blowing the socks off Heaven with their soulful grooves and two step beats to warm up the crowd up for the main event, a performance from Mr Adam Bainbridge, aka Kindness.

Bainbridge joins the ‘Slugs on stage and gets behind a mixing desk and a sampler. As he loops his pre-recorded vocal mantra of ‘I say it cos i know its true, let the music be a part of you’, the bass keeps pumping and dancing is imminent. When he starts to sing live, his voice sounds lush. But at this point he stops to confess that “We wanted  this to be seamless but we need 5 minutes”. His band then filter on, opening with a cover of Pointer Sister’s Automatic. Two great backing vocalists dance in time as Kindness launches into The Best. His silver silk shirt catches the golden lights and on stage, Bainbridge walks like Jagger but moves like Jackson. The cover of The Replacements’ Swinging Party is gloriously decadent, Cyan is beautiful, their rendition of The Luniz’s Five On It is dead sexy and Gee Up is insanely cool – it’s small wonder that electro clash demi-god Erol Alkan chose to remix it.

Adam Bainbridge is built like Peter Crouch, but he’s so insanely elegant and considered in every single movement that you’d forget. Not the gangly wallflower you’d expect, boy got soul. During the closing number, hundreds of yellow balloons with evil smiley face rave culture faces on them drop. It’s apt, we’ve partied hard. The band come back for an encore and play That’s Alright again.  “I’ve only got a 41 minute album”, Bainbridge apologises. But he needn’t have,  he’s just ran through a string of uplifting, gorgeous jams. And we’ve had an excellent time.

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