OK. That SAULT gig.
Those who suffer from FOMO or who react badly to hyperbole, scroll on, this is not for you…
I’m writing this on the morning after, still trying to process what happened. I think it’s going to take weeks to process it. I am hoping this will help.
Part gig, part ballet, part art installation, part opera, part fashion show, part dance show, huge choirs, orchestras, and at least 5 stunning, unique custom stages for one band during one set. Any of those elements would have stood as a standalone show. For them all to be combined into one coherent whole, was mind-boggling and mind-blowing.
It is without question the most ambitious show I’ve ever seen. And boy did they deliver. They’ve changed the whole game of what it means to do a gig. They have raised the bar so high it can now be seen from space. A celestial, joyous exploration and celebration of black fashion, culture and music.
Before I get to the show, let me lance the pre-match chat £boil. Yes, tickets were expensive. Yes, that would exclude a portion of their audience. But any suggestion of them price gouging their fans would sound faintly ridiculous to anyone who went. They hired a 15,000-capacity venue and reduced it to 3000 to fit in the next level of staging and art installations. They hired it for a week to do the build, and it was all for one show! They have no major label backing, with all their music coming from their own label. There was a cast of what felt like hundreds, everyone with different costumes for each song, bespoke hair and stage makeup for everyone including the 100+ strong choir. Visuals, films, the whole nine yards. The gig would have cost millions, many, many times what they got back in ticket sales. There was no alcohol, and in reality, no one wanted to go to the bar for fear of missing the action. Once the show started, I didn’t move from my standing spot for 3 hours. Let’s be clear, this show was a huge gift to the fans who paid a tiny fraction of what the band spent and what it was worth.
A world without this event would be considerably, and unimaginably culturally poorer. For something that will go down in history and will be remembered for a lifetime, it was unbelievably good value.
Now back to the celestial business. And celestial is the best word for this show. There was a divine spirit running through the event that would make the most hardened agnostic question their life choices. From the giant tablets of stone to the acoustic moments that left mouths open and tears streaming down their faces in the face of such ethereal audio beauty. A higher power clearly inspired and drove the show’s ambition and splashed its spirit liberally on the music, performances, art, fashion, staging and design.
Any doubts that this was going to be something special were immediately expunged as soon as you entered the door of the vast Drumsheds warehouse. The scale was immediately made intimate, personal, and meaningful. The crowd were gently drip-fed into a series of immersive art installations of which Banksy would have been proud. The beauty, storytelling and attention to detail gave immediate reassurance of what was to follow. As the path opened up into the main area, every stage was beautiful, unique and bespoke. The music and show were all around you, offering everyone a unique perspective wherever you were standing.
There was nearly 3 hours of music and show. Perhaps not surprising given the vast back catalogue of over 10 albums of genre-defying quality music they had to choose from. (Made let’s not forget in four years, whilst producing seminal albums for Little Simz, Cleo Sol, Michael Kiwanuka, and Jungle).
The music moved effortlessly through tones, textures, moods, vibes and genres. Startling and stomping one minute, soft and light as air the next.
It started with a magical, divine, uplifting orchestral choir opening, featuring songs from their album Air. The 100+ strong choir stacked on risers to the heavens on one side of the space. The horns, harps and strings of the orchestra on the other. Together they effortlessly blended into angelic mercy.
This gave way to what was called the Africa section on the setlist. Fierce rhythms, drums, fashion and dance assaulting the senses and stoking energy and emotional fire.
Little Simz dropped in. Chronnix and Kid Sister.
I wondered how they would manage the cloud of mystery they had created around the band in their first live setting. I did fear that being behind a screen a la Gorillaz might wear a little thin. I needn’t have worried. Aided by the sometimes literal shroud of set and costume anonymity, every artist added to the power of Sault’s show without ever diverting it into their own star orbit. The action was a 360-degree, 4-dimensional, rollercoaster ride. Constantly changing angles of approach and presentation. In front, from behind, from above, to the right, to the left, up, down, and inside out. Masked superstars came out front mingling with the rest of the cast of singers, musicians, and dancers. Before disappearing and reappearing again in a sweet silhouette somewhere else. Performers and artists snaked through the crowd throughout leaving you never sure where they would pop up next.
I left totally unsure if there was one core band, two or three. One performed behind a screen on the right of the main stage. Another, (maybe the same??), appeared in a glass cube amongst the main crowd. Their identity protected by wafting smoke between the sheets of the walls of glass, in staging of pure theatre.
The most stunning individual performance of the night was a solo section from Ganayva. A vocal performance so mesmeric in its beauty that it left the audience transfixed, with many in tears of joy. I don’t think I can remember such a moment of pure, live, soul-piercing musical beauty.
Even Michael Kiwanuka casually dispatched Colourblind after the encore with just his voice, an acoustic guitar and his silhouette.
Inflo, the show and musical creator, and purposely publicity-shy core of Sault, could have walked past you at any moment and you would never have known. His wife and musical collaborator Cleo Sol provided the golden thread that knitted the show together throughout. Appearing in a variety of guises and locations, but never dropping below the level of unmistakenly stellar. Her disguises instantly made redundant through her sheer presence, vibe and era-defining voice.
The choir, like the orchestra, was used purposefully and movingly. Like solo performers in their own right, they offered light and shade, interest and depth. No lazy X Factor-style gospel choir booking used to boost the charisma of an underpowered frontman. They flitted between choral, classical, orchestral, folk, and soulful moods. I’d have happily just watched a show with them on their own. And like everything, and everyone else — they looked AMAZING! Everyone dressed and styled uniquely. The level of detail in the whole production was incredible.
The dancers were also used as powerfully, and as intrinsically as any other of the performers. One minute stomping, driving rhythm masters in the style of Kendrik Lamar’s backing dancers. The next, soft and balletic. Always adding to, and telling the story of the music. I lost count of the number of choreographies, costumes and dance troupes involved. It was a lot. All shapes, all sizes of dancers, and all styles from Jazz to hip hop, to capoeira, contemporary dance, street dance, and everything in between.
Despite ‘one country, one album’ prior billing, they thankfully let rip through the entire back catalogue. The second half rollicked through banger after banger — Free, Angel, Masterpiece, Son Shine, Why Why Why, and culminating in Wildfires to name a few. Throughout their three-hour set, they must have rattled through 30 songs across their 10 albums, with not a filler in sight. How is this their first gig? How have they created such a catalogue of beauty in four years? And despite musicians being dispersed throughout the vast space, everyone hit their cues, avoided any sound feedback, and weaved it all seamlessly and joyously together. How?
As with the best art, the show opened up so many more questions than it answered. Was there one core band, or three? How did the sound guy pull it off? Did Inflo hold and drive the whole artistic vision, if so how? How did none of the hundreds of people involved leak what was going to happen? Why only one UK show? How on earth are they going to take the show to LA, France and Africa? How on earth could this be their first-ever show, a show that will go down as one of the all-time greats in the annals of history? What have I been doing with my life? Etc etc.
I took my 17-year-old daughter to the show, and it was wonderful to share it with her. My only sadness is we may have peaked her gig career before she’s reached her twenties. It’s difficult to see how anything can top that. It was Hollywood ambition with distinctively London taste.
In the end, the clue that perhaps unlocked the whole show and band ethos was the acronym name reveal towards the end.
S.A.U.L.T.
Start A Universal Love Trend.
Themes of love, loss and cultural pride were peppered throughout.
If this was the Start of a Universal Love Trend, then I’m in.
