[REVIEW] Damage rock the house at Jazz Cafe

There’s times in your life when you look forward to something so much that eventually the end result will not live up to expectations. Damage’s performance tonight at Camden’s Jazz Cafe spun that on its head – we were all looking forward to it; and well, the end result surpassed even the highest of notions.

The 90′s group were one of the first ‘modern-day’ true RnB boybands; breaking onto the music scene with debut Anything way back when in 1996…. scrolling forward almost two decades later, you realise how many hits the band had written.

This was the band’s second major stint over the past 12 months – with an astounding set at Jazz Cafe last July to start of the proceedings, expectations for tonight were too far up to see.

Before the set had even begun, the crowd’s spirits were sky-high; beats of ‘old school’ UK garage filled the sound system, whilst pre-performance hysteria ensuing once the crowd spotted the likes of Leigh Frances, Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell in the audience.

At 9pm, the band graced the stage. Appearing from the green room with mics to hand, the group opened up with album banger Good Folk; then followed 90s classic Love II Love. The crowd were well and truly warmed up.

I’m not going to go through every track, but there were some fab highlights. The guys took it back Spanish-style with a fantastic performance of [Stagedoor FM] Maria, bringing on the beautiful Kele Le Roc to do her thing, whilst Emma Bunton graced the stage on I Don’t Know – the crowd went wild.

Mid-set, the four-piece decided to slice up the evening with a homage to some of the great RnB acts of the past (including a short rendition of En Vogue’s Hold On – complete with the Jackson-intro!!).

Finishing off with an encore of Rumours (bringing Alesha Dixon onto the stage) and then of course their smash Ghetto Romance, there was not one person sitting down the whole evening.

This was a graceful return for the band – after splitting around a decade ago, they’ve returned more polished than anyone could have imagined. The choreography was great, vocals were tight, and the crowd participation was brilliant.

What the evening also showed us was how strong and how ahead-of-its-time Damage’s sophmore effort Since You’ve Been Gone actually was. Music back then was much simpler and more emotive – the crowd seemed to agree to wanting to hark back to yesteryear. To go back to the times where great music was made using real instruments as opposed to a guy on a Mac is really what’s needed – Damage showed they could pull it off with minimal effort.

Kudos chaps, looking forward to the next date!