A week before the consciously lyrical island folk heroes, Freetown Collective fly off to the U.K. to make their debut at the legendary Glastonbury Festival, the group performed the fifth and final show of their Tight Spaces Acoustic Tour at the Sound Forge in Mucurapo, Trinidad on Wednesday, 19 June. In the performance space that was reoriented 90 degrees from the norm by set designer Nadya Shah, the aesthetic of the band was acoustic, and the ambience of the space was intimately mellow, as audience members could literally sit at the feet of Muhammad Muwakil as he sang lyrics that praised and recollected a Caribbean perspective on love, living, animus and angst of a generation “born in darkness” — born after the early 1970s-80s Oil Boom decade, growing through the subsequent Oil Bust, and ever since surviving the revolving door of pitiful and ineffective small island politicians pretending at power. A new perspective on old ideas done well.
Culling tracks from a 15-year career that spans their beginnings as spoken word poets to music recording giants — with a platinum record to boot — the band set a new standard for stripping back the bombast that usually accompanies arena-ready groups to a relaxed, yet tight, collective of just keys, bass, acoustic guitar, percussion and voice to deliver music that made for the full house to sing along with, to bob heads to, to contemplate, all for more than ninety minutes. Their 2018 album Born in Darkness provided ample songs — “Born in Darkness”, “Light Man”, “Space for a Heart” — to make the case that the band’s reconstruction from electronic to acoustic can make an impression anywhere. New music from their upcoming album was also presented.
The harmonies were excellent that night, despite having just two of the Trinity background singers to balance with Muwakil and co-lead Lou Lyons, (soprano voice Malene Joseph was not present), and this setting made lyrics stand out and be heard. When one thinks of their 2022 hit with Mical Teja, “Mas” as just being a Carnival song, Muwakil reminds the audience that Carnival is more than freedom to dance naked, but freedom and resistance from a history of repression, a spiritual celebration of our authority to be our own kings and queens. Poetry as lyrics won a Nobel Prize for Bob Dylan, and a O.C.C for David Rudder. Freetown Collective is on the right path!
The takeaways from this final performance before their new adventure abroad was how flexible a performance of Freetown Collective can be, how intelligent the lyrics present themselves in beautiful music that makes for movement, how ready this band is for greater things in the music business beyond a boundary. Also, how willingly gracious they are to share their tight space with spoken word and untested singer-songwriter talent. When the band appears under the big top at the Croissant Neuf venue in Glastonbury, it will be both an observable and sonic juxtaposition with this performance under the galvanise roof of Sound Forge, and a spiritual continuation of the modern philosophical grounding of enlightened Caribbean artists to take on new challenges and reform it in ways that all can enjoy.
This Tight Spaces concert series — “beyond the machine” as the band describes it — was a preparation for a second voyage to the former colonial centre to return the native gaze away from the exotic towards the intelligent and excellent. They are building a community. We in Trinidad and Tobago look forward to their return, and the future of music.
© 2024, Nigel A. Campbell. All Rights reserved.
