LIVE REVIEW. Jungle is a modern soul collective based in London. On March 17th, the collective held their second show in Sweden at Mejeriet in Lund.
At the heart of the collective are Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland. Known as J and T, the two are childhood friends since the age of nine. The pair initially kept their identities a secret while rising to fame through a viral music video of a talented six-year-old girl dancing to their song Platoon. Clever move? Maybe. It certainly kept the duo in an air of mystery.
Since then, they have expanded their group to seven members. J and T, staged at the center with their keyboards, were really the heart and soul of the night. The duo exuded great energy right from the start. And this energy only kept on building through the night.
The crowd was a mixture of internationals and locals, mostly of the hipster variety.
Now, let me preface this part by saying that this is my first ever concert review. And since I had heard great reviews of Jungle in concert, to say I was excited going into the show would be an understatement.
With this in mind, I promised myself to keep a neutral mindset throughout the show.
By the time Jungle played their song The Heat followed by Smoking Pixels, an acoustic song with rhythmic tribal sounds combined with whistling, I found myself letting go of making little mental notes and simply dancing to the beat. At this point, I decided to give up on trying to find something critical to say. Because the truth was, I just wanted to dance to Jungle!
And just to make sure I was not the only one who was very much enjoying myself, I scanned across the room a few times and confirmed that the feeling was mutual. The whole room moved and grooved together to the funky vibe.
Jungle has tapped into soul and funk and made it really cool. They even made Adidas jump suits cool.
In the end, J and T had huge smiles on their faces and thanked the crowd for joining them to dance together. I daresay they seemed to have enjoyed the night as much as I did.
