Coming on to no fanfare, the four-piece Funky Meters - average age north of 60 - immediately launched into their New Orleans funk-jamming with an attention-getting drum pattern from Russell Batiste Jr and got down to the night's business of finding grooves and riding them.
And with bassist George PorterJr centre stage - an original Meter in the 60s with keyboard player Art Neville before the band split, re-formed and adopted a product description into their name - this was deep funk at its finest. But not always at its most shaped.
Early on some of Neville's short solos were unresolved or went undeveloped and you sensed the on-stage enjoyment was because they were feeling their way through these instinctive grooves.
As one section segued into another, identifiable songs - Africa, Hey Pocky Way, Fire on the Bayou - were just the heads of the energetic vamp grooves. So when Neville wasn't in strong voice it hardly mattered. Aside from the locked-down and inseparable rhythm section of Batiste and Porter, the star turns belonged to guitarist Brian Stoltz who seemed to channel at various times the soul-rock spirits of Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys as much as New Orleans ... and sheet lightning as he alternated between furious finger-picking, massive whiplash chords and searing but concise solos all in service of the relentless funk.
And this was relentless. We might have been in the presence of masters in the genre - there were many musicians among the smaller-than-expected crowd - but by the closing overs most who had been enthusiastically cheering and moving to the funk at the start were down to more silent and slow head nodding. Funky for sure, but rather less formed as well.
