UK Edition
Review
Here's to 50 more series-Later... with Jools Holland, Royal Albert Hall, review
Where could you find heavy-rock superstars, a venerable legend of popular music, a household-name Brit rocker, an American jazz crooner, chart-topping Grime rapper and super-hot African desert blues band all on the same show? Foo Fighters, Van Morrison, Paul Weller, Gregory Porter, Dizzee Rascal and Songhoy Blues would make for a pretty peculiar festival bill, but their very eclecticism made them ideal guests to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Later … With Jools Holland.
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Indeed, once you throw the bumbling, fumbling, enthusiastic piano-playing host into the equation, the line up starts to make a strange sort of sense. Later has been BBC television’s flagship music show for quarter of a century, which is remarkable in a business driven by fads and fashions, divided by trends and genres. Top of the Pops is history. The Old Grey Whistle Test has faded into the archives. But Later still rocks, pops, raps and swings on, a one-stop-shop for music fans that thrives because it focuses on a key ingredient, the vital element of pop culture that unites, rather than divides: the music itself.
For its anniversary, the show relocated from its usual studio production base in Maidstone, Kent to London’s most venerable venue, “the showbiz centre of the world!” as Holland proclaimed. Instead of a small number of invited guests, there was a paying audience of several thousand, looking down on a circle of bands ranged around the stage and the auditorium floor and all facing inwards. Camera booms swung about in the middle, and figures with clipboards scurried busily around. It is not often you see a band of the stature of the Foo Fighters, playing on the floor, with their backs to half the audience. But the Royal Albert Hall is a gorgeous venue, and banks of enthusiastic fans provided a busy visual backdrop while injecting into the proceedings the kind of extra warmth and energy that really helps performances come alive.
The Foo Fighters were storming. Songhoy Blues were rivetingly joyous. Van Morrison sang R’n’B standards with a voice still astonishing in its fluid ululations. Dizzee Rascal stalked the floor like a prizefighter while his DJ shook the walls with subsonic electronica. Only Paul Weller was a little underheated, in pastoral acoustic mode. The old mod has been on the show 15 times, and treated the occasion like a relaxed night amongst friends, strumming old favourites.
Other guests affirmed Later’s crucial commitment to promoting new music. Colombian-American singer Kali Uchis made her debut, conjuring up slinky hip hop R’n’B grooves. British newcomer Jorja Smith showed off her rich, jazzy modern soul. Singer-songwriter KT Tunstall brought the house to its feet with a stomping rendition of Black Horse & The Cherry Tree. It was her performance of that very song on Later in 2004 that launched her to fame.
Comedian Paul Whitehouse, a regular audience member over the years, joked about Holland’s longevity. “Regimes have come and gone, kings and queens have gone, presidents,” he snorted as if incredulous that Holland was still here.
“Fifty years of Later – what do you think?”
“I think we could do it!” shouted Holland, although at 59 he is no longer the skinny young gun who made such a successful shift from pop stardom with Squeeze to TV presenting with Channel 4’s riotous pop series The Tube in 1982, eventually launching Later in 1992.
Whitehouse offered a mischievously accurate impersonation of Holland’s hunchback hustle across the studio floor, babbling out names of bands as if operating on a wing and a prayer. There remains something endearingly amateurish about Holland that has led to criticism over the years of his role as the BBC’s favoured music broadcaster. He is one of the worst interviewers on television, barely able to articulate questions, and rarely following a coherent line of thought. Yet the fact is he gets good quotes, because musicians like talking to him. He is one of them.
His musical ability is his not-so-secret weapon. As a genuinely gifted piano player, he really understands the connections between the different genres the show places before viewers, and sets a very welcoming mood encouraging listeners to open their ears and hearts to his guests. Holland is a natural enthusiast. He took a shot at playing some Bach on the Albert Hall’s vast organ and made it sound like he had just crashed an expensive sports car. But he redeemed himself sensitively backing American jazz singer Gregory Porter on a phenomenal version of Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa that inspired a standing ovation. And I can’t think of another TV host who would have the skills or chutzpah to slip into the legendarily demanding Van Morrison’s band for a showstopping rendition of his 1964 classic Gloria, performed by Morrison with surprising joy, delight and humour. Roll on the next 50 series.