“Beardy-man, Beardy-MAN! BEARDY-MAN!”

The crowd are chanting in the queue even before the doors have opened for this hotly-anticipated and long-awaited gig. Beardymans’ regular sparring partner, previous DMC champion JFB drops an excellent DJ/VJ warm-up set – expertly looping phat beats and breaks with aplomb. DJ Shadow mingles with Ron Burgundy samples, whilst everything from hip hop to old skool funk falls out of his laptop and onto the dancefloor.

But it all really goes off when Beardyman (real-name Darren Foreman) takes to the stage. The crowd surge forward expectantly as he launches into his set. It’s really rare to find an artist that combines such technical skill whilst being so downright amusing. He’s a pretty unique proposition – a beatboxer, but so much more – creating entire soundscapes from his voice and a stack of technology. Having recently added video to the set, it’s a jaw-dropping, hilarious, visceral experience.

Early on he alludes to his debut record ‘I Done A Album’, but claims he gets bored easily so every night of the tour he’ll make a new one with the audience. Using feeds from FaceBook and Twitter, as well as bits of paper being passed forward through the crowd, all of a sudden we’re all bouncing along to ‘Nitrous Oxide Panda Bears’, complete with panda and balloon visuals, dubstep beats and general hilarity. And from then on it’s an onslaught – drawing from a plethora of instantly recognisable hooks (a-ha, Massive Attack, Wildchild, The Chemical Brothers, Eurythmics) and deftly adding the crowd’s input; ranging from “a one-legged centipede zombie with a boob job”, to the proposition of a threesome from some ladies in the crowd, he’s fully in control – and loving it.

There’s a certain British, Monty Python-esque absurdity quality to all of this. And that’s completely a good thing. The future’s bright for Beardyman. A brilliant night’s entertainment.

Beardyman, Digital, Thursday 17th February 2011
Words and photos by Ed Isaacs