The last time LABJACD rocked an Adelaide stage they kicked out their hip hop, funk, jazz and world music stylings to 1200 people at the Persian Garden. Seven months later they are part of a triple-headed bill that will get any hip hop, funk, Latin and groove merchant salivating…

The Melbourne-based nine-piece have got Delta and the Shaolin Afronauts with them at their upcoming gig at The Gov. So, after rocking to 1200 people on a Thursday night the last time they were here is the group’s percussionist/vocalist Cristian expecting good numbers for their upcoming gig?
“We’re hoping,” answers Cristian. “The Persian Garden and the one before that [at the Festival Centre] sold out but they had heaps of advertising and I think all the festivals have a lot of money behind them with promo. This time it’s the first time it’s just us putting on our own night. But we’ve got Delta with us so that should be cool.”
Surprisingly, for a group that has a loyal following here and in Brisbane as well as their hometown of Melbourne, they haven’t scored a record deal. The released their first album independently with assistance from John Butler’s JB Seed grant.
“We’ve got a distribution label MGM, but we haven’t got a record label … We haven’t been approached but at the same time we’re happy to do it ourselves and maybe build up a bit of a label as we go along.”
Currently LABJACD are working on a follow up to their 2006 debut Vote With Your Feet. While their first album was all about trying to capture the live feeling that the band does so well, this time around they will be mixing it up with songs cut live as well as multi-tracking.
“We’re right in the middle of it. We’re taking a different approach to the first album. Our first album we did kinda live and this one we’re doing five live songs and half live and half multi-tracking and editing and chopping up the whole stuff … We’re definitely a live act, so I think we went with that with the first album we just went ‘yeah let’s just do it live to try and capture that sound’. I think it just doesn’t work for some songs, you know?”
But live is where they impress, Cristian says ADL is his very favourite place to play in Australia and he enjoys playing to the Adelaide following they have picked up. He thinks part of this good crowd response is due to the open-minded crowd that first saw them perform at WOMAD.
“When we played the year after WOMAD and we did that Adelaide Festival Centre gig, that was cool, that sold out before we got there and we had 400 people. That was a really broad kind of crowd, there was a mixture of young and old and that’s the cool thing about it I think. WOMAD just brought everybody along.”
David Knight
LABJACD play The Governor Hindmarsh on Sun Oct 5 with Delta & Staen 1 and the Shaolin Afronauts.