The Saturday night before a bank holiday Sunday doesn’t usually bode too well for pub owners or party goers. Not to mention the fact that that bastard of an economy has knocked the bollocks out of our leather wallets and sequined purses, people tend to save themselves for Halloween night so that they can blow €70 on an inflatable whoopee cushion costume in the vain hope of winning a plastic trophy and a bottle of sparkling wine down the local hotspot.

Imagine my surprise, so, when I arrived at the Button Factory last Saturday to see Chicago’s most successful buskers, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, and found the place packed tighter than John O’Donoghue’s expense account. The thing about the Button Factory is you have to get there early otherwise you’re screwed, thanks to the ‘school hall’ shape of the room. Thankfully, Connected risked life and limb manoeuvring our way through the slightly agro crowd as they tutted, sighed and spilled warm beer on our heads, before nestling ourselves into a comfy spot between the sound techies and the stage (all for the benefit of you, our beloved readers, of course).

Only once we were in situ did the real energy of the place come resonate with us; though we did feel a little sorry for the poor sods who’d forked out €22 to stand down the back without so much as a glimpse of the stage. After months of watching insipid indie-kids standing around languidly as some hipster in hipsters played with synthesisers, it was great to see people dancing so much that their collective sweat dripped from the walls; such was the effect of the nine hyperactive Hypnotic’s on stage; eight of whom are sons of Kelan Phil Cohran, trumpeter with the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra and founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

The assemblage of trumpets, trombones, baritones, drums and that mighty impressive sousaphone is a sight enough in itself but to play those instruments with the panache and professionalism of the HBE takes some doing. Not to mention the fact that they move like Chippendales in rhythmic unison to the jazz/hip-hop/funk/soul fusion that appears to come so easily to them. As children, the eight Cohran brothers had wind instruments thrust into their mouths in place of pacifiers and, though they have grown up in a hip-hop generation, their primary sound has its roots in 60’s Jazz and 70’s Soul.

Their instantly recognisable second single ‘War’, which they dedicated to all of those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be described simultaneously as a battle cry, thanks to its segmented instrumentation and overlying trumpet solo, or a contemporary jazz opus. Either way, the crowd went mental for it, as they did with the rest of a raucous, sweaty set. In fact, the only time that HBE seem slightly under par is when they allow their hip-hop influences to surpass their phenomenally disciplined musicianship. Calls to the crowd to “let me hear you say Hypnoticbrass.net” and an over-extended rendition of ‘ole, ole, ole’ came across as unnecessary and caused a bit of a lull in the night’s proceedings.

But now we’re really just nit-picking. Ideally, you want to be seeing these guys in their natural, organic environment: in front of a dressed shop window at Christmas, a sprawling urban park in Summertime or down a cobble-locked side street in the late evening sun. You can bet your bottom dollar that at least half of Saturday’s crowd turned up as a result of having seen this formidable band of brothers at Electric Picnic in September. For all their hip-hop stylings and “say yeeaah, say ho-ho” yammering, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble are exceptional musicians and merit a distinctive setting for their music to be fully realised. Failing that, though, the Button Factory will do.

review: Sheena Madden

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