Music Features

After several years away, Kula Shaker started playing together in early 2006. It's taken them over a year to reach Cambridge but judging by the size of the crowd in the junction tonight it doesn't seem like they have lost any fans. Unfortunately it also appears as if they have not gained many new fans being that the room is predominantly a more mature audience.

Kula Shaker stroll onstage at just after 9, dressed to impress with the smell of incense lingering in the air. They burst straight into "Hey Dude" which hasn't aged a day and sounds stunning, it's like being sent back in time and seeing it played live for the very first time.

They play 7 new songs tonight, which all go down very well. Particularly "Song Of Love" and "Great Dictator Of The Free World" which also gets a lot of laughs from the crowd due its obvious political content.

Kula Shaker

Psychedelic

Hearing the new songs live really does them a lot of justice, they sound as if they were written to be played live and go down like a house on fire. Some of them getting a better reception and louder cheer than the songs from first album K.

Although obvious crowd pleasers came from songs such as "Hey Dude" at the start, "303", "Jerry Was There" and "Tattva". After all, that's what the crowd come to hear and they were executed with pinpoint precision. With two projectors behind them playing images of random psychedelic film and Indian images it almost felt as if they should of been playing in the same decade Hendrix was.

Powerful

It's easy to see watching them that they are all still very passionate about the music they are playing and all the songs feel fresh to them. With the drums sounding perfect, the bass feeling warm and Crispian's slightly erratic live persona and guitar style its hard to believe they ever were apart.

Classic songs like "Knight On The Town", "The Sound Of Drums" and "Mystical Machine Gun" were all missed but as Crispian started to play the opening riff of "Govinda" the crowd knew the night was coming to a close.

The band’s Indian influence is on display for all to see in this song and they still possess the power to get the entire crowd to mutter every word. As they play the last few notes of "Govinda" and when they leave the stage the entire crowd acknowledges how much of a remarkable band they were and still are.

Crispian grabs Alonzo's mic and cracks a joke: "We'll see you in seven years." With performances like tonight's, I think it will be slightly sooner.