★★★★☆
Photography by Adam Hampton Matthews
There’s something about Baxter that makes you want to go back and study him. Walking onto the huge Roundhouse stage in his signature slick suit and crinkled shirt, you could easily mistake him for a Canary Wharf businessman getting wasted and shouty. As the Wednesday night set descended further and further into the eclectic chaos of his entirely genre-less music, the jacket came off and a scarf tied itself around his head, furthering the whole ‘school boy meets rock star’ act. Throughout the night, he said little more than yelling “London!” or asking over and over for the crowd to “scream!” Instead, he stood there, holding poses and letting the crowd praise him.
There’s something fascinating about it – Baxter’s total ease on the stage that takes a form unlike anyone else. The son of famous rocker Ian Dury, Baxter doesn’t have the swagger of a rockstar. Instead, he has the kind of freedom boys in bands are grasping at, throwing his body around, weightlifting the microphone stand and yelling “I am the milky bar kid” in a completely unique show about masculinity and boyhood. Comparing the night’s antics with older live footage, it’s amazing to see Baxter loosen up. Despite making very different music to his father, touching on RnB influences while Ian played in the alt-rock arena, he seems to buzz with the same kind of animalistic energy. Totally unabashed and full of spontaneity; at the Roundhouse the crowd never knew what he would do next.
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Musically, his band were incredibly tight. While Baxter paraded around the stage, sometimes shouting, sometimes whispering, his three-piece back held down the track. The stand-out addition as always was his keys player and vocalist Fabienne Debarre. With so much of his music relying on the stark contrast of his London drawl and a more delicate female vocal, Fabienne provides a beautiful foil to Baxter’s chaos.
Elsewhere, a BSL interpreter, dressed in Baxter’s same grey suit, added a whole vibe in himself, dancing round to keep up with Baxter’s ever-changing energy. As a unit, the stage show held together effortlessly and efficiently, allowing Baxter’s wild ways to never spill over into being too much or too exhausting.
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Highlights came exactly where you’d expect them. Latest album tracks ‘Leon’ and ‘Aylesbury Boy’ gained huge reactions from the crowd, as well as the encore performance of ‘Celebrate Me’ which saw Baxter posed front of stage getting all the applause he deserved. 2005’s ‘Cocaine Man’ remains a highlight, while 2014’s ‘Palm Trees’ comes as close as Baxter gets to writing an Ian Dury song, as the chorus of “does she think she’s special? Very fucking special” gained a booming, boisterous sing-along of fake cockney accents.
As the night wrapped up with a rendition of his Fred Again.. feature track ‘(Baxter) These Are My Friends’, finally tipping the crowd into full-on dance party, I’m only left wishing the vibes of the venue had lived up to the energy on stage. While Baxter danced and posed his way across the podium, at one point sporting a LED light hood and tying his scarf into several costume changes, the Roundhouse remained feeling vast and cold. Baxter is exactly the type of artist that deserves a lightshow, something melodramatic and vibrant that could tie together his varied influences from dance, rock and spoken word. As the Fred Again.. track built and built, it deserved some strobes to support the climax. But as far as Baxter Dury’s performance goes, his uniquely strange stage presence, affinity for shouting and his silly lyrics that gain a genuine giggle when heard out loud, everything about him makes for a great show. Even if you don’t know the songs, you can watch on with your jaw swung open and the mix of joy and confusion washing over you. That’s the Baxter effect.
