“Sani Festival has come alive! What a beautiful sight…” Jazzie B is in his element as Soul II Soul thrillingly turned what he earlier termed “an awkward situation” into an out-and-out triumph – but boy did he and his group have to work for it.
The Sani Festival occurs on a clifftop at the Sani Resort near Halkidiki in Greece, a next-level family holiday heaven which is more like a small party town than your typical resort. Its festival – running over a few weekends each summer; Robert Plant and James Arthur played earlier this month – has been running for almost 35 years now, and brings in a crowd made up of holidaymakers and music fans from all over the region. But its origins are in Greek music and jazz, and it retains the seated crowd set-up more associated with those styles.
But this is Soul II Soul, London’s dance music legends who tore up the rule book from the late 80s with Club Classics Vol. 1, stormed the charts around the world and most importantly got millions of people on their feet. It therefore somewhat throws Jazzie B that for a good portion of the set people are sat sipping their drinks and merely tapping their feet to the onslaught of funky soul.
It feels strange, when they look and sound this great. With an all-female front row of singers and string-players and Jazzie B elevated at the back, his trademark black hat looking iconic against a backdrop of the Tower of Sani, a 16th century Byzantine fortification lit up pink for the evening, they play a combination of classic hits like Keep On Movin’ and choice covers that include Ghetto Heaven and Nothing Compares 2 U. Lead vocalists Nadine Caesar and Charlotte Kelly absolutely rip it up with soaring performances and the band led by a super-tight rhythm section are as powerfully fluid as the waves crashing beneath the cliffs.
They work hard. Jazzie B repeatedly takes to the front of the stage to spread his message of love and unity even if the dancing is not quite happening, other than with the folk stood around the sides and back.
But then it suddenly does. First, one woman rushes from behind a roped barrier to dance at the front of the stage. Then another, and another. Until the floodgates open, everyone from all areas rush towards the band, the seats now vacated as at last the show proves simply too funky, the band too undeniably brilliant – resistance is futile.
It is one of the most exciting things this reporter has witnessed in quite some time. And Jazzie B is lapping it up, this transformation from a nice show into a raucous one, and yet another testament to the power of music to literally move people. “Keep it going, Greece, keep feeling it,” he exhorts, grinning because he knows the tune they are playing next is of course Back to Life. The night duly elevates up another notch to create a night to remember at the Sani Festival and proof that seats at gigs are there to be left.
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