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Taken from Vanguard Online (Dec. 05, 2003)
MICHAEL FRANTI AND SPEARHEAD
@ Manchester Academy II
by Ross McGibbon
 There are some gigs you're going to love - those where the band isn't that well known but they've been building an audience for years. Not 'this year's flavour', Franti is here for the long haul - returning year after year, just like his audience. They've followed him through the Disposable Heroes of Hiphopracy and The Beatnigs to the disappointingly prosaically-titled Spearhead. And the crowd is here to party, packing out the school assembly hall sized room. How often do you get to see the whole crowd dancing, even the people at the back? That kind of energy picks me up and sweeps me along into a sweaty fury.
Franti strides around the stage, imposingly tall and impossibly charismatic. From the man with a cold that I talked to earlier in the evening he has transformed into a revivalist preacher. Launching into the smooth and groovy Crazy Crazy, the band lilts into Soft Cell's Tainted Love. The whole band bounce up and down, waving their arms and we, inspired, wave ours around. Franti's dreads follow the bounce. We get bursts of freestyling - lightened enough to win over the mainstream members of the crowd, then the Clashes Guns Of Brixton. Radio - the human beatbox chips in with a beatbox solo and, incredibly, the Banana Boat Song (Day-O). That's not all - have you ever wanted to hear Smells Like Teen Spirit as a human beatbox tune?
This is an eclectic band - playing soul and hiphop in a way that can reach
anyone, whilst retaining all its heart. Gil Scott Heron would be the closest reference point. The charisma is astonishing. Over a two hour set the audience is entranced, tied into a groove. When Franti signals for us to twist down to the floor and sit, everyone, e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e, sits, right the way to the back of the hall. He lets us back up to dance to the infectious jit-jive of Taxi Radio (he explains - 'we wanted to make a song with the two most recognised words in the world'). A few little speeches about brotherly love and slagging down Bush and Blair remind us Franti wants to engage minds as well as feet but tonight we boogie till our feet are sweaty.
I'll be back next time I see the name.
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