Something of an anomaly amongst the folk and country-heavy line-up of Celtic Connections, French reggae act Dub Inc recently made their Scottish live debut as part of a festival that’s not typically known for incorporating Jamaican sounds.
As ever when it comes to opening acts at the ABC, the DJs of Glasgow based soundsystem Argonaut Sounds are expected to spin their tunes while people are still passively shuffling into the venue. As such, their set struggles to capture the crowd’s attention, even when they drop a bashment version of Wendy Rene’s soul belter ‘After Laughter (Comes Tears)’. The place seems cavernous, like the music is coming from the end of some Kubrickian hallway. There’s nary a soul on the dancefloor and I seem to be the only one in the room paying any attention to what’s being played. In a sweaty, teeming basement their set would undoubtedly go down a storm, but in a half-empty ABC the mood of the evening is distinctly low energy until Dub Inc arrive onstage.
Out of nowhere the room seems to fill up and the energy levels rise exponentially. Suddenly the dancefloor is alive with movement as bass rattles the ground. Throughout their set, which unsurprisingly leans heavily on tracks from their latest album ‘Paradise’, Dub Inc deftly blend reggae with elements of non-western music. The musicianship on show is astonishing. Co-vocalist Hakim Meridja’s vocals are almost supernaturally strong and the rhythm section is as tight as any I’ve heard in reggae. Sadly, the whole things comes off a little too glossy, like a by-the-book rock band playing dancehall dress-up. It’s Musical Youth when it should be Matumbi. It’s all a tad corny for my tastes, especially when frontman Aurélien Zoho starts to spout eye-rolling, vaguely political platitudes in between songs. In fairness, he has something of a magnetic presence and the crowd hang on his every word, no matter how empty his potboiler sloganeering is.
Dub Inc are, without doubt, a well-oiled machine but there’s something spurious about tonight’s performance that I can’t quite put my finger on. That being said, judging by the ecstatic faces in the crowd it doesn’t appear that anybody else in the room shared my scepticism.