The drummer and keyboardist were already a minute into an instrumental jam when Thundercat walked onto the MTELUS stage, a black matte six-string bass in hand and a huge inflatable black cat looming behind him. He slipped into the groove without stopping it, as if the set had been waiting for him to catch up.
The Distracted AF Tour is built around Distracted, his fifth album and first since 2020’s It Is What It Is, released on Brainfeeder in April. It brought him back to the room where Montreal Rocks reviewed him in December 2021. Before the show, I spoke with Thundercat about mosh pits, his brothers and Montreal.
TiaCorine had been billed as support but was not allowed across the Canadian border, so the only set before Thundercat was a DJ. Butcher T played 30 minutes of disco, funk, rap and R&B from a laptop and mixer on a folding table in front of the cat. A long changeover followed before the band came on. The wait for an actual performance seemed eternal!
That opening jam set the pattern. The trio moved between songs and long instrumental passages, and the playing was never less than impressive. The drummer, in a gold disco-ball helmet, was the standout, holding a firm pulse under constantly shifting parts. Two backing vocalists, introduced as his neices, did a superb job throughout the evening and looked like they were enjoying every minute. The keyboardist stayed mostly hidden behind his stacks, but his playing filled out the sound. Thundercat’s bass sat high in the mix, loud without thumping the chest, and his voice stayed bright and clear over the rapid fingerwork.
The cost was that the songs sometimes came second. Stretches of the set felt like a showcase for what the three of them could do rather than a run through the music people had come to hear. Newer material such as No More Lies, She Knows Too Much and I Wish I Didn’t Waste Your Time took up much of the first half, and the crowd favourites were held back. Dragonball Durag, Funny Thing and Them Changes did not arrive until the closing stretch.
The sense of play helped. Thundercat looked relaxed and in charge, joking with the crowd, sitting on the speakers at the lip of the stage and reaching out for high-fives. He signed a record mid-song. The day after his birthday, the room sang him “Happy Birthday” and talked him out of his fur coat. He took it off and carried on as if the interruption had been written into the set.
For the last song, Thundercat switched to a gold Sonic the Hedgehog bass. It caught the lights as he played, a bright final flash against the black cat still watching over the stage.
Photos by Steve Gerrard.
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