The Budos Band and Delicate Steve

Some people struggle to understand the appeal of going to see a purely instrumental band perform live, those people have clearly never seen New York outfit the Budos Band. A decade into their career, this collective has performed at some of the world's most renowned musical events and seem to only get stronger with each performance.

Although they don't have vocalists, the saxophone and rich brass section facing microphones seem to be like a musical version of a vocal and they all interact together. With deep funk, soul and afrobeat influences acknowledging their five studio albums, the music changes and evolves over the space of the concert. The audience remains enthusiastic and receptive throughout as they applaud and cheer at the finale of every single song played. They perform an unusual cover of Led Zepplin's 'Immigrant Song' before finishing on a triumphant crescendo of 'Turkish'. It is a brilliant night of music with some of the best instrumentalists you are likely to see performing on the circuit.

Multi-instrumentalists are fascinating to watch, I can’t play anything myself, but I think that watching the skill that it takes for the musicians to swap between guitar, piano, bass, and many more is astounding, and seeing Delicate Steve do this live was simply incredible. His progressive rock style of music is intertwined with folk, and African rhythm, as well as mainstream pop styles, giving him a really organic and original sound.

He played the show in a really intimate venue with a small band, who were mastering instruments from synths to maracas, and the environment was incredibly exciting to be in. He played a really great variety of tracks from a selection of his albums. He opened the show with a lesser known track from his debut album, Sugar Splash, but everyone there seemed familiar with it, and we were all singing along.

Steve played a few covers as well as his original tracks, and got us up on our feet dancing when he played through some of his collaborations he’d worked on with Ra Ra Riot. It was an incredible show and his energy and conviction, as well as talent were sky high throughout the show.