The sun is setting over the spectacular Sydney Harbour and we’re aboard The Island, a fully kit out barge awaiting the arrival of Mark Ronson. Even though he’s running a little late, the wait is well worth it and he subsequently made up for his tardiness triple fold.
Mark Ronson has managed to fuse together a mixture of soul, funk, rap, hip hop, urban, pop and electronic dance music and deliver it to the mainstream. Currently in town to promote his latest record Uptown Special and the lead single “Uptown Funk”; a collaboration with Bruno Mars which is currently inescapable from radio play, Ronson enters the makeshift platform stage and stands behind his DJ desk with a cool swagger sporting his enormous quiff of hair. From the moment he hits the decks with “Ooh Wee” though there is barely a pause as he churns out song after song. We get a bunch of his own tracks including “Feel Right” and “Daffodils” and that massive hit “Uptown Funk” off his current LP which he played twice just for good measure.
There’s also “Bang Bang Bang” and his mate Daniel Merriweather joined him for a belt out of “Stop Me” which got a raucous response. But when Ronson kicked off “Valerie” with the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” in rapid succession and then followed it up with a slew of classic pop/funk/hip hop tracks including the Beyonce Jay Z “Crazy In Love” and Snoop Dogg and Pharrell’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot”, Missy Elliott “Work It” as well as Drake “0 To 100”, James Brown and Prince to name a few he had the entire barge swaying side to side.
Ronson comes across as a DJ of the old school. Watching him as he near seamlessly splices song after song together he keeps the tracks going and there’s barely a break between. He’s also softly spoken, when he does pick the mic up to talk to the crowd. As Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” starts he takes a pause to say how Wonder was one of the greatest musical influences on his life and how it was an honour to get him to provide a harmonica piece for his latest record (it’s called “Uptown’s First Finale” and is the opening track) and you can see that he’s genuinely humbled.
The only other time he makes a noticeable comment is when he takes a few moments to tell us he was only supposed to do a half hour set but that he wants to continue the party because he’s loving the fact that we’re all dancing to the old tracks that he enjoys playing. It was during “Somebody To Love Me” featuring Boy George that the water police (yes, for real, the cops) showed up, this was around 9:30pm to perhaps give a nudge along to the organisers that it was time to wrap things up.
In the end he played for around an hour and 45 minutes in total, significantly longer than he was supposed to. I get the distinct feeling that if the police hadn’t shown up he probably would’ve kept going and I strongly doubt any of us would’ve stopped him or much less cared of the time. The only thing that could’ve made that moment better was if Ronson had been spinning “Here Comes The Fuzz” but it was definitely a funny moment. There’s no denying that this particular edition of the channel [v] Island Party was a real dance party with a brilliant soundtrack and many of the attendees left with big smiles and feeling a little bit sweaty.
Mark Ronson’s performance for the Channel [v] Island Party will go to air Sunday 15 February at 4:00pm AEDT on Channel [v].
Photo courtesy of © Ashley Mar
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