Gig review of Joe Bataan

It's hard to understate quite what an event this was! It's only Joe Bataan, The King of Latin Soul, playing just 3 gigs in the country, his only 3 gigs EVER in the country. Incredible, but after being at the top of his particular tree for over 40 years, here he was in Leeds 10ft away from me, rocking through some of my favourite songs ever. Sweet.

So firstly, hats off to The Wardrobe, Karen P and DJ Lubi, who with much support from the Red Bull Music Academy (presumably financial seeing the puzzlingly low £10 ticket price) pulled this out of the bag. Good to see Leeds getting the gigs it deserves.

Also instrumental in getting the man over here was James Pants, West Coast beat merchant, who in some unfathomable arrangement with Red Bull was 'presenting' Joe Bataan, it also involved coming on as warm up for a few songs of his own. The whole show was astoundingly well backed by Grupo X, so tight it would be a great disservice to call them a pick-up band, with Bataan only bringing over his percussionist and backing singer wife.

After being entertained by a few brave/exhibitionist salsa dancers (the guys so macho and yet so camp at the same time) we patiently watched Pants go through his funky white boy songs, the highlight of which was mainly the confusion on the uber cool percussionists face at his yelping, keyboard trashing James Chance style antics. And there we were, Joe Bataan, looking ridiculously good for 67, centre stage with his wife, launching straight into 'Gypsy Woman' the '67 tune that helped introduce the world to 'Latin Soul', Bataan's blend of pure latin rhythms with the black R'n'B sound of the late 60's, then onto the early 70's with Scott-Herons 'The Bottle' and one of my all time faves 'Ordinary Guy' covering the period where the Afro-Philippino helped found SalSoul and inadvertently kick started disco. The groove got to '79 where our increasing Zelig like hero released 'Rap-o-Clap-o' a pioneering Rap track. Bataan took a break from performing for a well deserved decade or so in the 80's (remarkably this included time counselling in reformatories he'd spent time in himself as a teenager) only recently beginning to record again.

So the crowd rocked to Salsa, Boogaloo and probably some other genres I'm not going to pretend to know and showed their appreciation after the astounding set. No encore as the Boogaloo bus had to depart for Birmingham where they were rocking the 'Fox and Hounds' the next night (I kid you not.)

Great Venue, Great Guy, Great Gig. Did I mention it was only a tenner? Now take a tenner of your own and treat yourself to a greatest hits at least.