Last year saw the release of Landing on A Hundred the first full length album in ten years for soul artist Cody Chesnutt. It's a great record that covers Chesnutt's spiritual re-awakening but also follows a grittier path about the ills of society, very much in the vein of Marvin Gaye and his What's Going On album. So being enamoured with the album I was looking forward to seeing the album performed live and I wasn't disappointed, Chesnutt gave an energetic and intense performance. He seems like an artists that won't accept second best, at one point at the start of a number he stopped his band and demanded a tighter opening which they duly delivered.
He came bounding on stage singing the brilliant That's Still Mama with his urgent and insistent vocals more than adequately supported by a crack rhythm section. The joyous Till I Met Thee was enthusiastically received, even on slower numbers like What Kind of Cool Will We Think Of Next he kept the audience engaged, there were no flat spots in the performance. He covered nearly the entire album including the autobiographical Everybody's Brother which details the difficulties of his past, Love Is More Than A Wedding Day which harks back to the glory days of Motown. As he came back on stage for his encore he announced that he no longer performs any songs from his breakthrough album The Headphone Masterpiece which cause some minor chagrin in the crowd. Probably the highlight of the gig was Cody coming out after the gig to sign autographs and pose for photos.
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