Jason Mraz played a secret show in Sydney last night. At 12:30am, he was on stage at The Basement. Kevin Lai was there and tells Undercover all about it.
Earlier in the evening when Bushwalla welcomed the sold out Hordern Pavillion to “the circus”, few had any idea the show would really get underway five hours later in a small underground bar with no more than a hundred witnesses.Far removed from the countless lights and camera flashes of the first of the evening’s two performances, fans were greeted at the Basement with a live video of Jason Mraz, Bushwalla and Toca Riviera setting up their own equipment on the floor below.
As fans huddled into the underground bar, like local performers feeling right at home, all three men floated about the audience signing autographs and saying hello to fans and friends alike. Without warning, or microphone, Mr. A-Z begins a freestyle rap which bounces between him and his old college roommate as the pair walked across table tops to make their way to the stage.
Returning to the old “coffee shop days” where the trio played smaller venues all along the Californian shoreline, far from the world’s largest stages, it was apparent they felt right at home in this setting not too dissimilar from where it all started.
Gone were the electronics, lighting effects and horn section that showed earlier in the night just how far they’ve come. Taking their place, acoustic guitars, African drums, a whole lot of raw ability and a childlike fascination for rhyming about the most ridiculous topics including the difficulty of “being a gangsta with a basket on your bike”.
Showing vintage form, one lucky female member of the audience was chosen as the focus of one unrehearsed melody. Unlucky for her, although undeniably unforgettable, the two wordsmiths told the tale of how they found her number on the venue’s men’s room wall and how she had already become a favourite booty call.
The highlight of the night, however, came when Bushwalla returned to the stage with a life jacket while Mraz and Riviera performed “Plane”.
Much to the audience’s surprise, the afro’ed musician pull the rip cord immediately inflating the floating device. As the song carried on, Bushwalla showed a very believable fear of choking - all the while refusing to stop rhyming about how this “was not planned when we rehearsed out the back”.
The night ended with the get up and dance tune, "Fall Through Glass". With Mraz traversing through the crowd with tambourine in hand, it did just that, starting what felt like a surreal Hollywood movie flash dance from the seated audience.
By show’s end, all three men had made the Basement their house. So much of each individual was put into every song, action and stumble, all for the sake of entertaining themselves as well as the late night crowd.
Upon leaving the venue, as the showmen talked amongst the crowd, there was a sense that the party would still continue and that I may be missing the out on the best parts yet to come.
The time now, however, was 2AM and although mentally enthralled by the entire life experience, physical fatigue could no longer be ignored. Mraz, Bushwalla and Riviera though had hit a high and seemed as if they could have carried on all night long.
You can still get tickets for:
April 17, 2009 - Music In The Park, Adelaide (with Missy Higgins)
April 21, 2009 - Festival Hall, Melbourne
