This weekend has seen an absolutely incredible festival hit Birmingham (UK) once again. Artsfest, which is heavily rooted in Birmingham’s modern creative culture, selects the best musicians, dancers, artists and general creative types and spreads them across the city in free events all weekend long.
Having performed twice at Artsfest in 2011, Genius Collective were honoured to be asked to return in 2012, but this time the opportunity was even bigger! We had the huge opportunity to be one of 10 bands to be hand picked for the BBC Introducing stage, which took place on the main stage on the 9th September (sunday). With the sun slowly setting, Genius Collective, accompanied by Kezia Soul (vocals), Carvalho (vocals), Matt “Drummer Matt” Spence and for the first time Saf Ali on Trombone instantly engaged the 200+ strong audience, offering a 25 minute set that promised to showcase Genius Collective’s diverse sound and range of influences to their full extent.
Beginning with a new, latin inspired, intro composed by Alto Smith (deriving from Sergio Mendes!), the band leapt into action with Grumpy Old Man, which although always being a crowd favourite, seemed funkier than ever with the horn section. The set flew by, ending with the mammoth Theory:
which, assisted by the super quick lighting engineer, saw the crowd get involved in a call and response that had everyone jumping around and having a good time.
This was most definitely one of Genius Collective’s defining musical moments, and for that we have to thank Louise Brierley and Brett Birks of BBC WM Introducing, who offered this unique opportunity.
If you missed it the first time, we have a few of our tracks from our live radio performance for BBC Introducing at the start of the year on our soundcloud, including Grumpy Old Man:
Look out for a photo diary of the event, courtesy of John and Mara Leftlung very soon!
Of course, we also have to thank the Yardbird for having us open the Yardbird stage on Saturday 8th, and the Artsfest team for making this such a special weekend.
Here’s to next year!!!!
geniuscollective 