Zero 7 / Earl Zinger Hammersmith Apollo The Hammersmith Apollo is a large venue on the West of London and is usually home to bands like the Rolling Stones and other massive chart toppers. Tonight was a touch different, but the headliners Zero7 are Mercury prize winners and have built themselves a bit of a fan base for their bland form of euro funk. On the undercard was !K7's Earl Zinger who is receiving much praise for his latest album release. Earl Zinger is another alias for Rob Galliano of Talking Loud fame and as the Earl has produced some leftfield semi abstract Hip Hop / beat music. For this tour he has landed the plum spot of getting his name out to a new set of heads who may not be familiar with his work, but also at the same time be able to perform infront of a crowd less knowledgeable about Hip Hop and therefore able to gain plaudits for relatively little outlay, because instead of trying to impress hard to please die hard Hip Hoppers he was performing to Zero7's fans who seemed like they would lap up anything especially if they thought it was a touch edgy, regardless of the actual quality. Unfortunately due to the usual London Transport problems when we arrived at the theatre it seemed Earl was already on stage and going for it. There was a slow queue at the guest list window and we anxiously waited our turn we just knew that the remaining minutes of the act we had come to see were slipping away. After catching joke with the bouncer we rushed through to the auditorium to see Mr Zinger placing his microphone back on its stand and leave the stage. People we spoke to said Earl had come correct with his unusual blend of funked-out hiphop but that the strangely muted crowd had made it difficult to get things real lively - this is a shame as Earl's latest album was definitely diverse but had enough top notch headnodding moments to keep any hiphop head pleased with the purchase. After a 30 minute wait and some £3 cans of Carling Zero 7 took to the stage and did their thing. For each song it appeared that another band member took to the stage and it seems they have three female and one male vocalists who all seem to be the main singer! Throughout the set these singers came on and off stage making for a varied show and no doubt saving their vocal chords as well. I felt very out of place,mostly because the audience simply stared at the stage and hardly seemed to get anything out of being there. It was like a scene from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World with everyone chilled out on Soma. The passive audience was not dancing and to me the whole performance and sound was bland. Each time the band got a groove going they moved on and the tunes did not develop how I would have developed them. If you don't know the majority of Zero7 is down tempo, but when the accomplished musicians did raise the pace and inject some funk into the bass lines people went with it, but unfortunately these moments were few and far between. Anyone who bought a ticket and left when Zero7 left the stage would not think they had received value for money, but they were also fools as the band came back on for two encores which probably doubled the length of time they were on stage. Being the last date of the tour the band were emotional, but also well practised and tight. Just before they finally left the stage they went through a list thanking everyone involved in the tour, but really none of the band knew how to interact with the audience and did a very poor job of either making it interesting or being funny. Leave the talk to Hip Hop people who know how to talk to an audience. Zero7 know how to play their instruments and leave it at that. We progressed to the after party, which blatantly wasn't. So we downed a couple of expensive beers before chipping to the last tube and wondering whether it had been worth it. - QED © ukhh.com 1999 - 2005