Raphael Live in London

I had the pleasure of seeing the legendary Rapheal Saadiq in concert last night, and all I can say is wow wow wow! What a singer. What a performer. What a musician. Despite the puce clouds, torrential downpour and lukewarm reception from the audience (seriously, why do people part with their hard earned cash just to stand with their hands in their pockets looking as if they'd rather be indoors watching Holby City?), my guy stood on stage for just under two hours and gave it his all. Sweat, funk, heart, guts: the lot. My only critique would be he took too long to get to the material that most of the crowd were waiting for - namely the Tony Toni Tone & Lucy Pearl stuff. For the most part he performed a lot of material from his new album ‘The Way I See It’, which if you’ve heard the lead single ‘Love That Girl, you will know is deeply inspired by the sound of Motown. And indeed it felt very much like an old skool Motown revue. The band were decked in black suits with white shirts and skinny ties. Raphael was rocking a banana yellow suit with white shirt and black nerdy glasses - tress cool. There were hand claps, foot stomps and Temptations inspired dance moves for extra effect. Dude truly went all out. But as much as I love Motown, and you know I love Motown, an hour or so into the show I had had enough. And so had the rest of the audience judging from the lacklustre response bestowed upon the talented showman. But after hearing classics like Anniversary (choon) Just Me & U (bigger choon) and It Never Rains (in Southern California) (immense), I was in my element. But the crowd still remained unmoved (SMH while KMT).