I have known about Postmodern Jukebox for many a year now after seeing many many of their covers on YouTube. Covers you say? They don’t make original music? Well you see that’s the thing.. I mean that IS their.. thing. Modern Music, played as if it had come during the heyday of the 1920’s Jazz Clubs and found at home in New Orleans or similar. The New York based PMJ is a massive collective of talented musicians, singers and instrumentalists as well as Dancers and other performers. Created out of a basement in New York City back in 2011 by pianist Scott Bradlee, his goal was simple; “to remake the pop hits of today into the classic sounds of the legends of yesterday“. Now some 22 years later PMJ have become an acclaimed pop-culture mainstay in its own right. They have toured the world extensively playing massive venues such as the Radio City Music Hall, Sydney Opera House and many many more, and now tonight they are gracing the stage of the Liverpool Philharmonic.
One of the keys to the success of PMJ has been their introduction to audiences, many of the world’s greatest singers – more than 70 over the years – dancers and instrumentalists, many of whom have gone on to enjoy success in their careers in their own right. The PMJ collective is so large that they often find themselves on different tours of the world simultaneously and now is one such occasion with a world tour and a north american tour happening at the same time. PMJ have stuck to their roots also with the songs and artists they cover and how they go about the arrangement of their songs. Every week they still release a new view to their YouTube channel.
I wanted to wait to read a review of the Monday 17th April performance of Postmodern Jukebox from the Liverpool Philharmonic before I wrote my own as frankly, I couldn’t tell you the names of any of the talent artists who were in the performance, and I want to, as some of them specifically deserve name recognition. But it’s now Wednesday and I can honestly say I have been left disappointed but at least in my searching, I cannot seem to see anywhere that has the event covered. Mainstream media or local independents.. I am very surprised. What is really quite odd is that I cannot see any mention of the Liverpool show whatsoever online.. At the end of the show, they took a photo of themselves together with the audience at the venue.. and even that I cannot seem to find on social media. But it really did happen.. I promise.
The view as seen from row B of the Upper Circle at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall was very good. The seats were perhaps a little cramped side to side, lots of elbows in ribs, but there was at least some knee room. They were.. a little low causing people who can’t have knees below hips some issues with standing back up etc but otherwise I wanted central seats for this performance and these were probably as central as we could have gotten. The scene you see in the image above was pretty much how the stage stayed throughout the performances. I was.. a little disappointed by that. I thought perhaps they might have had some element of interaction behind them rather than a rather uninspiring still of a classic New York style street.
On stage in terms of instrumentalists there was six in total which included; a pianist, guitarist, double-bassist, percussionist, saxophonist and trombonist. Considering the overall size of PMJ as a collective, I guess I thought there might be more than those extremely talented folks playing instruments. In addition to that there were singers and a dancer too. The dancer was a tap-dancer who performed once or twice upon his small square tap plate which you can see in the photograph positioned to stage left. There was a compare who came out and talked to the crowd occasionally, but he was one of the singers also. There were an additional 4-5 female singers who took it in turns to come out on to the stage and perform their songs. As I say I don’t have any of their names to reference while writing this review unfortunately, but I think I can be confident in saying that I don’t recall them being any ‘large’ names that I have previously seen performing with PMJ in YouTube videos. I was a little disappointed that the overall size of the cast wasn’t just generally.. bigger. – Don’t read that wrong, the people that sang all sang amazingly well and the instrumentalists all played exceedingly well, I guess I was just expecting a little more.. dazzle from a collective as large as Postmodern Jukebox. – The promotional images for the performance.. generally show a larger ensemble than there was at the Philharmonic last night.
PMJ performed some of their classic tracks that I know of and have listened to many a time over on YouTube including Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah during the show and played as an encore song Radiohead’s cult classic, Creep. Both of these were sang by my favorite singer of the night, who’s name I would love to tell you.. I really hope I am right but her name was Effie Passero [Instagram]. Earlier on in the performance, one of the tap-dance performances was played to a very creative melody of tracks which people of my age and experience might have known from the Super Mario Brothers games of the early 80’s & 90’s.. I wonder if I was the only audience member sitting there giggling a knowing giggle as they went through 1, 2, 3 including the underwater and underground bits, level ending bits and of course the invincibility parts from the series, all the while tapped out by a good tap dancer who’s name would be inserted here if I knew it!
All in all a good night out. Good to see Postmodern Jukebox and cross them off my list. Would I see them again.. Probably yes. I did enjoy the music, the entertainment, the company and the evening. I was possibly I don’t know.. not feeling it 100% but that was really due to things that had nothing to do with the performances of PMJ and was at the end of the day, just my own feelings. Possibly.. expected a little more, but they say they want to come back, so will keep an eye out to see if they do, and what they do again in the future. If I ever find any other reviews, or more information about who was part of the UK tour, I will update this review, but until then I think that is more or less going to wrap things up here.
