Babar Luck (Gig and Album Review)
At this moment in time, I have ‘Care In The Community’ by Babar Luck booming through speakers as well as the headphones I’m currently wearing. It’s just that good that it needs to be channeled twice, once to directly to the brain, mainlined, then again, through the collection of carefully aimed satellite speakers through the body.
I’ve wanted to write about Mr. Babar Luck since I first discovered him at the Roskilde festival. I couldn’t then; I’ve spent the last couple of years wrapped up in his music, unable to give a coherent voice about it, unable to tell you how good it is because I’m just too busy listening to it.
I’m a firm believer in the fact that sometimes you will only be able to review something properly, when it has sunk just properly within you. Not the day after or even the week after. Sometimes, the product or piece deserves a bit more attention than that. I probably would have had a clearer vision on what to say about Babar Luck if the day I discovered him was not also the same day I saw him live for the first time and met the man.
It was 2006 and we’d woken up to a beautiful summer’s morning at the Roskilde festival. With breakfast bellies filled with whiskey and coffee we went exploring and found ourselves in the ballroom, curiously waiting the coming act.
My partner in crime knew King Prawn — Luck’s previous group, and I was dimly aware of having heard them in the past, so we got beers and waited. I wish someone had warned us. Just some sort of heads up for the powerhouse performance we were about to hurtle through.
The Punk-Ska Political fist was now an open one-love palm, beckoning you to bounce and sing. The man plays with an intensity matched only by the care he displays for the audience. If he said bounce, we bounced. If Babar ordered we groove, we did as this wild-eyed funkster commanded. It was a revelation and I fervently believe that anyone out there, who goes to a Babar Luck gig and fails to have a good time, is probably dead inside, much like Katie Holmes — who constantly stares out at me from the cover of National Enquirer with her cold, cold, dead eyes.
Soulless eyes…
The devil’s eyes…
Ah right, where was I? Oh yeah, Roskilde.
Babar Luck was supported at Roskilde by two (was it three?) skilled female musicians who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. In fact, they seemed to be grinning and laughing as much if not more than many people in the crowd. Afterwards, I found it a rare enough spectacle that when the gig wrapped up, people were not just crowding around the stage in a hope to get a free CD, but were instead waving money around. Within a minute or two all copies of Babar Luck’s ‘Care in the Community’ album were gone and my companion and I were left talking with the man himself.
We did the usual two people stunned by a fantastic gig and promptly thanked him copious times and demanded he play Dublin and Amsterdam. It is always a joy to find out that the warm stage persona wasn’t hiding a cranky reclusive performer. I’ve really tried to find some sort of criticism of Babar Luck’s stage show, something anything, even a problem with the sound at Roskilde and I can’t. I’d just like to be able to see the man in concert more often.
I’m extremely thankful that my companion, in all her mohawked glory caught the eye of the drummer. Were it not for the free CD she received, it would have taken us far longer to get a copy of the album and we may well have forgotten to purchase it in much the same way as we did with Bellowhead. That free CD would lead to my purchasing the album from Babar’s website. One for one I guess.
From ‘1 Luv’ and its jangling guitar opening on ‘Care In The Community’ to its abrupt stop and the Ska-Punk guitar opening of the album’s title track, this is a solid album, perfect for drinking cider to on sunny days. Though political at its core, the stories it sings manage to easily straddle the personal — as Babar discusses influences from his childhood, as they do the sociopolitical — as he relates a refugee and his life story, or even the corruption of governments — namely America’s need to stop propagating war about the world. Of the twelve song listing ‘Quarter to Eight’ is a personal favourite.
Granted, with a heady spiritual vein running through the album, if you are like a Finnish friend of mine and cannot bare listening to songs where a man mentions God, then this isn’t for you. But if you can accept past the wording of some parts of the man’s message — you’ll find an album that’ll age extremely well in your collection — and maybe, just maybe you’ll be lucky enough to see the man perform.
Review Update:
It’s ten years now since Roskilde, since I saw Babar Luck play.
Ten years that ‘Care in the Community’ has been with me.
It has never left me.
Bringing back memories of the dead, beers on pavements in the sun, whisky in coffee on terraces, the warm drift of weed and rolled Dutch Javanese cigarettes. I think that time and overplay has not managed to kill the record is a true testament to its quality and Babar Luck’s musicianship.
It’s good knowing Babar Luck: World Citizen is out there.
If you have the money to pay them their worth…find Babar Luck…get him to play…
Here’s a track from his 2007 release ‘World Citizen Frankenstaanee’
Check him out — Buy the album (it’s available to download) — Bring him to your town
Originally published on 09/04/2008 elsewhere
