Matt Schofield: Plunger ask, “Is he? …or isn’t he?”
… and the answer is “Yes, he is head and shoulders above the pack.” While the rest tangle their fingers into knots with effort, Matt’s no-more-tears playing is silky and smooth and smelling of summer meadows… [that’s enough hair product gags, Ed.]
Matt’s recent Under The Bridge show was proof (if any were needed) of his effortless superiority, backed by long-time, on-and-off collaborators Carl Stanbridge on bass and Jamie Little drums plus first-timer Dan Moore on keys (depping for soon-to-be father of two regular, Jonny Henderson).
There was no new album to promote (long story, and best untold) so it was a tour through previous releases opening with a rollicking pair from Heads, Tails & Aces: first the jazzy bustling ‘What I Wanna Hear’, slick and crisp with Matt on top form straight off the bat with a fabulously fluid, full-neck-tour solo and trademark Coltrane-like off-the-beaten-blues-track progressions; then the stop/start Feat beat of ‘Livewire’, with more languorous lines and squeals delivered with deceptive ease.
Anything But Time contributed two monster slow numbers: fevered flurries introduced ‘See Me Through’’s smoky blues, led by Matt’s impassioned vocal, full of expressive melodic lines peppered with flashes of jazzy cleverness and exquisite-toned scorching feedback savagery. The expansive airy vibe of ‘Where Do I Have To Stand’ featured taut vocal, and complex jazzy chords and octave playing, before an echo-drenched, relaxed meander steadily grew in intensity and complexity (of both playing and tone) to a monumental, screaming climax and a lovely extended Bettsesque closing ramble.
From Far As I Can See came the straight-up barrelling shuffle of ‘Everything’, with marvellously meaty organ playing, and the killer swing of ‘Hindsight’, which gave solo spots for the band; a “proper” extended tour of the kit, some fusiony liquid bass and a punchy blast of Hammond. The band had more spotlight moments in the choppy, off-kilter funk of the title track of Siftin’ Thru Ashes, where Matt’s own fat-and-furry tone solo saw more skittering progressions and grittier, driving fusion pyrotechnics.
Matt rounded the night off by bringing up co-headliner Henrik Freischlader (and fellow-Floridian, vocalist Jay Stollman) for a couple of closing classics: an old school jam on ‘Stormy Monday’, and (ideal for Jay’s high, raspy vocal) Goffin & Goldberg’s ‘I’ve Got To Use My Imagination’, culminating in great to-you-to-me and intertwining unison playing with bags of Harmony. Sorry, ‘harmony’.
Shampoo gags aside, Matt really is in a class of his own.
