Review: OKO at Cleere’s Theatre
The jazzy side of the music strand continued at Cleere’s Theatre last night, the festival hub for 2011, as OKO mixed and scratched their way into Kilkenny with a funky jazz performance that kept the back room at Cleere’s buzzing for the night.
Shane Latimer (guitar), Shane O’Donovan (drums), Darragh O’Kelly (keys) and Jack McMahon aka Djackulate (decks / samples / flute / sax), some of the top performers on Dublin’s jazz scene (as the gig was billed), delivered a top drawer performance in the back room that had something for everyone – times soft, times grungy, times rock, times reggae, but all time energetic and a great listen.
Their set flowed pretty relentlessly and we could have been 40 or 50 minutes into the show before the first really noticeable break between songs, at which point the scratching and mixing really took off, reminding me of that Linkin Park cd collection sitting on the shelf at home – and I don’t mean that in any bad way at all, I’m quite a fan of the band’s remix style.
My notions of jazz as a genre have been all but thrown firmly out the window this weekend and if trioVD (Friday) were more technical shock and awe to the ears, OKO were the perfect tonic to nod and groove to in winding out day two of this year’s festival.
Take a look at the video above (or below) for a taste of what happened last night and if you see the name OKO, get yourself to the gig. You genuinely won’t be disappointed.
- Ken
