Balsall Heath’s Castle & Falcon is one of the newer live music venues in Birmingham, a city that finally seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance in these otherwise uncertain times. Found in the back room of a revitalised pub that is somewhat off the beaten track and something of a schlepp away from the city centre, it is the kind of venue where bands that are just finding their feet in the live arena might be found.
It was, therefore, something of a shock to find My Baby there, a band that have been making a mark for themselves on the festival circuit for a while. However, it proved a fine place to welcome our Dutch and Kiwi friends while a million or so were similarly reaching out to our continental mainland buddies and protesting the Brexit shambles into which wishful thinking and bare-faced lies have landed the UK.
My Baby are a three-piece consisting of Dutch brother and sister Cato van Dijck on vocals and Joost van Dijck on drums, ably assisted by the bluesy slide-guitar antics of Daniel Johnston. Laying down a trancey-rave vibe that brings to mind '90s veterans Sunscreem and The Egg, it's a sound that is aimed firmly at getting audiences up on their feet and shaking a leg from the first note until the last – and this is what they firmly succeeded in achieving in Birmingham, a place where it can often take a while for audiences to get warmed up.
Bursting on to the stage looking like escapees from Jefferson Airplane at their peak, My Baby hit the ground running with the title track from their recent Mounaiki – By the Bright of Night album, laying down a sound that might be best described as ZZ Top go raving with Ofra Haza. The 200 or so strong crowd of 30- and 40-something veteran ravers responded immediately and the whole of the room, from the front of the stage to the back wall, let loose. “For a Change” and “Supernatural Aid” followed in quick succession, with plenty of funk guitar licks and shameless lifts from Sly and the Family Stone’s “Family Affair”.
After this fiery opening salvo, Cato briefly left the stage looking like Grace Slick in her prime to return in the garb of Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago, before launching into a magnificent “In the Club”. The audience sang along with the “I go deeper down/I go deeper down” refrain, as hands went up, hips moved from side to side and the room temperature rocketed. That’s exactly where the atmosphere stayed for the rest of the evening.
Returning to the stage after a brief breather, My Baby ploughed into a psychedelia-powered hoedown of an encore that again got bodies moving and faces smiling. It all ended with an extended “Make a Hundred” that again dipped into Sly Stone’s back catalogue with bursts of the monumental “I Want to take You Higher” and, true to form, that’s exactly what My Baby managed to do.
