LIVE REVIEW: KONGOS

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DALSTON
12TH JUNE 2014

The purpose of a live show is to develop a tighter bond between music makers and music devotees but thanks to a whole wave of sleeveless hyper-colour shirt wearing bands getting far too caught up in making sure their baseball caps look ironic enough, live gigs are becoming more about somewhere to tag yourself on social media and less about the actual music.

KONGOS however pretty much engaged the audience to the extent where the walls at Birthdays felt like they were shaking and not just from the Kwaito (it’s a style of South African music, saved you a google search) rock group’s blaring accordions and integration of high speed Paul Simon melodies during instrumentals, but from the sound of the ram packed Dalston venue singing along with every song.

The Kongo brothers bring an indisputable passion to the table and that in itself makes them a must-see live band. They also don’t wear ironic baseball caps or shoes for that matter, it’s pretty casual.