The Levellers / 3 Daft Monkeys

Manchester Academy 1 on Sat 2nd Dec 2006

With a definite sound of the Levellers to them, Cornwall’s 3 Daft Monkeys are not daft or monkeys at all. There are however 3 of them, using a fiddle, foot drum, bass and 12 string guitar to produce dancing folk jigs with bits of dance, dub, punk and reggae mixed in. ‘One Fine Day’ is a lengthy tune and the punky ‘Social Vertigo’ are good songs for the festival circuit, where the monkeys are best known.

The Levellers can always pull a crowd. It is heaving in the largest of the three academys and once everyone starts dancing (which doesn’t take long after the warm up from the 3 Daft Monkeys and The Levellers impressive back catalogue) it gets a wee bit warm, but with a fantastic atmosphere. ‘One Way’ and ‘Beautiful Day’ are thrown at the crowd early, and the digeridoo part at the end of ‘Boatman’ is great with Stephen Boakes dressed in UV face paint, a feather bower and a kilt waggling his bottom (the poor soul is missing some teeth, according to Mark).

Levellers

The set is just hit after hit, with ‘Hope Street’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Battle Of the Beanfield’ and other Leveller’s lovelies. Even though there is little banter, the set seems to last 20 minutes, when in fact 2 hours have passed. ‘Riverflow’ raises theroof, with people in varying stages of drunkenness trying to keep up with the faster then recorded pace of the track. The lads look to be having a great time as always, and the free CD to coincide with the Chaos Theory DVD is the icing on the cake.

article by: Danielle Millea

photos by: Danielle Millea

published: 05/12/2006 10:57



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