If Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, Maxwell’s stunning debut album, was released today instead of two decades ago perhaps it would be him who would hold the power to glue our eyes to a live stream of a near empty room for days on end. Perhaps it would be #Maxwell that would constantly trend on Twitter whenever the R&B artist dropped even the slightest hint of new music.
It surely seems that the power someone like Frank Ocean has over the youth of today would have belonged to Maxwell had social media and melodramatic hype (no disrespect to Frank, Blonde is a very good album) been a thing in 1996; an album like Channel Orange was as well-received as it was because of how mature, grounded, and composed it sounded compared to the sea of edgy, oversexed R&B that snaked around it. This parallels Urban Hang Suite in some ways, the critically acclaimed album came at a time when the scene needed a shake-up. It was not ‘sex’, but ‘love’ that was overdone in R&B; slightly cheesy same-same love which would go into one ear and out the other often with shallow production, until a then 23 year old Maxwell crafted a sound that had all those qualities I just attributed to Ocean. It was mature, it was grounded, it was composed, it was sophisticated, and it was some of the most sensual contemporary music ever released; it remains so, just as fresh and vital decades later.
Urban Hang Suite and Maxwell’s subsequent works quite obviously remain close to the hearts of music fans around the world, so it was with wide open arms that the artist was welcomed at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre to both celebrate 20 years making it easier for people to love one another and promote his new album, the fantastic BlackSUMMERS’night.
The last time Maxwell was out here was to headline the much talked about Soulfest, the top billed name on a line-up that was like a dream come true for discerning fans of R&B and Hip Hop. His Sydney sideshow was also at Enmore Theatre, an excellent performance that if nothing else was a comforting reminder of how timeless this man’s music is. This time around it was much of the same, though Maxwell’s band – made up of accomplished musicians in their own right – had grown in size, had a bigger sound, his live show was tighter with a visual element to it, and the man had some new material to showcase.
After a sole support act who took us through a playlist of everything from Brandy to Slum Village, curtains closed and opened to reveal a stage packed with talent, proceeding to built into a jazzed up interpretation of Urban Hang Suite intro “The Urban Theme”, an extended jam which seamlessly gave way to the spirited funk of “Dancewitme”, a surprising and welcome inclusion that brought the man himself out to the stage and an adoring audience.
Gliding around the stage in his neat grey suit, Maxwell let us hear that dynamic voice bounce from wall to wall while strutting from song to song, always slotting in comfortably between beats when the band would go large and turn many of these recordings into so much more. Though it would always be Maxwell that would remain the heart and soul of the 15-song set, a confident, debonair performer who would constantly switch from a haunting, emotive falsetto to a rich, deep tenor to animate the different textures of these songs.
Maxwell’s fellow musicians would also prove to be essential to the show’s success, bringing in a variety of extended solos the best of which was a transcendent display of brass from St. Louis based jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold (whose work can be heard all throughout Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead).
The warm glow of orange and red would constantly pair with Maxwell’s smokey vocals, but many visuals like a woman taming a horse set against a volcanic sunset felt tacky when illustrating such incredibly executed works as “Hostage” and the raunchy “Bad Habits”. More effective were simple rays of white light that would rain down on Maxwell as he would very calmly stand front-centre for his beautiful cover of Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work”, cleverly prefaced by the original with the lyrics shining across the screen. Maxwell’s famous version still hits the heart as hard as ever, his vulnerable falsetto sounding like a piercing, broken cry. It was a tender, captivating moment followed by the inspired “Lifetime” and new single “Lake by the Ocean”, one of the year’s finest R&B songs, treated with one of the set’s standout performances.
The magnetic funk of “Sumthin’ Sumthin'” drowned in busy arrangement that sadly lacked the velvety sway of the recording, but the band picked back up for the focused “Get to Know Ya”, cleverly injecting James Brown’s “The Big Payback” into a live remix, a sense of adventure that would pop up again for the show-stopping “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder)”, which was sharpened by Darryl Howell’s deeper-than-deep drum pattern of Q-Tip’s “Breathe & Stop” coupled with the original recording’s infectious bassline and the crowd’s enthusiastic, on-cue sing-a-long.
A one-song encore of the sweet “Pretty Wings” satisfied before the pioneering neo-soul artist and his valuable band made their exit, leaving fans who would have clearly persisted through another hour of watching this consummate performer, despite it being a chilly Monday night.
Set List
The Urban Theme
Dancewitme
Everwanting: To Want You to Want
NoOne
Bad Habits
Hostage
This Woman’s Work (Kate Bush Cover)
Lifetime
Lake by the Ocean
Sumthin’ Sumthin’
Get to Know Ya w/The Big Payback (James Brown)
Fortunate
Let the Church Say Amen
Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder) w/Breathe & Stop (Q-Tip)
Encore
Pretty Wings
———-
