It’s a Friday night (10 April) and everyone at The Tivoli has that 'thank God it’s Friday' glint in their eyes when I look around at the mass of smiling, happy faces, eagerly awaiting to see the music genius that is Michael Franti and Spearhead.
Franti and the band enter the stage and simultaneously the crowd erupts with excitement; I literally feel shivers of exhilaration and while previously I wasn’t sure what to expect with this show, I suddenly realise I am about to witness a potentially life-changing spiritual, music experience. Here we go.
Image © Chris Ward'Hey Hey Hey' opens the night with a soul-lifting performance that has the audience in a dancing, hand clap, sing-a-long frenzy. There is something about Franti that makes me feel like life is going to be ok and this Friday just became a whole lot better.
'Hello Bonjour' is up next, followed by 'Stay Human' and Franti’s voice is now over powered by the audience; we all sing together like a gospel choir and The Tivoli is alive with the sound of gorgeous, vocal harmonies, rich bass and a seriously funky beat.
The band is seriously incredible. The sound is immensely warm and literally feels like it’s shining over everyone. Franti turns the heat up again with an amazing performance of 'The Sound Of Sunshine'. Hundreds of giant yellow balloons drop from The Tivoli sky; and now we're all playing with the sun and throwing it at each other. I am so happy right now I can’t even handle it.
After the sun shower, everyone is glowing radiantly and I can’t even describe how blissful I feel when Franti rolls straight into 'Everyone Deserves Music'. By this stage everyone in the room feels very together and connected; my new best friends. Music enlightenment is imminent.
Image © Chris WardFrom this point, Franti leaves the stage and re-appears on The Tivoli balcony looking over the audience with his guitar like some sort of beautiful, dread-locked Jesus. He ventures down into the crowd and sings and dances with everyone for what feels like a long time; he is one of us now. We are one of them. Let’s be friends, Michael Franti. Yes, I am in love with you.
Special guests enter the stage and Franti shares a beautiful story about friendship, love, life and perspective and it literally brings me to tears, and I’m not the only one. Now that we are all deeply connected in this amazing moment, we are coming to the end of the show. The pace starts to pick up again when the band drives us into an actual dancing frenzy, I seem to have hundreds of new friends and now everyone is dancing on stage too. We literally do not stop dancing.
Image © Chris WardFranti and Spearhead finish with a spectacular finale and the audience are literally rejoicing together; it feels like I have just been born again. The music never actually stops and as the band pack up around the dancing punters on stage, The Tivoli is drowned out in an amazing, dance, funk, hip hop party and no one is ready to leave. The party goes on.
I feel so privileged to have seen Michael Franti and Spearhead and can genuinely say that I have had one of the greatest live-music experiences to date. Franti is not only an incredible musician and remarkable performer and poet, but a positively gorgeous human being who strongly connects with his audience with so much more than a performance, spreading his message of love and sunshine into each and every one of us.
Stay human ;)
