On the Road Again
Live Reviews:

Jamiroquai
July 15, 1999
The Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto

Who would've thought that a little British man with a penchant for wearing goofy hats would bring over 8,000 people to see him shake his teeny-tiny ass? Well, Jay Kay (better known as Jamiroquai to his legions of fans around the world) sure did just that (and a hell of a lot more) at the Amphitheatre.

From my vantage point — which was everywhere from level 400 with the over-sexed couples and tokers straight out of Half-Baked to the very front by the overzealous dancers on the floor — Jay Kay seemed to be the tiny, dark jester-like figure onstage, overshadowed by his numerous bandmembers and equipment. But once his legs started to move he was hopping around, moving from the back to the very edge of the stage; he didn't stop moving for the rest of the show.

Music fans notoriously know the Amphitheatre for its bad sound, but someone must have done some tweaking with the system's speakers Thursday night. Jamiroquai's set was almost complete perfection; the band sounded loud and clear with every tinkling of the organ keys and whispering of the flutes audible throughout the stadium.

Jamiroquai did not disappoint his new fans by playing almost all of the tunes off his newest album Synkronized, including "Black Capricorn Day", "Butterfly", and "Supersonic". The latter song's thumping basslines sounded so fucking brilliant that everyone could feel the floor and their seats vibrating. Not one person was sitting down for that song, and if they were at the start, somebody had grabbed them to get jiggy in the aisles by its conclusion.

He did disappoint his older fans (slightly), though, by neglecting to play his backlog of material from Emergency On Planet Earth and Return Of The Space Cowboy. The better known hits off of 1996's Travelling Without Moving (like "Virtual Insanity" and "Alright") were covered as expected, but a big surprise was the choice of playing "Deeper Underground" which cropped up on the Godzilla soundtrack last summer. You know the video, it's the one with Jay Kay dancing around the giant lizard's death grasp. Why choose to play this song off a soundtrack to a terrible, and I mean TERRIBLY DULL, film when there's so much better material to cover for his devoted fans?

Still, they pulled off a nicely-done cover of The Rolling Stones' "Missing You", the Cat in the Hat all the while strutting up and down the stage with a borrowed plush Viking Hat from a fan atop his head.

Just as soon as it had begun at close to nine in the evening, it all ended too early at ten-thirty. He closed the set with the disco-influenced leadoff single "Canned Heat" from Synkronized as an encore, and then bid his fans adieu with a promise to come back to T-Dot in November for another show. Some fans felt a bit cheated with only one encore, but hey: at least I can finally stop singing "I got Canned Heat in my ears tonight" (I realized he actually says "I got Canned Heat in my HEELS tonight" — at least that straightened me out).

Getting the funk out was the main point of this show, and it was a success since I haven't personally seen that many people shaking their asses and moving their feet one song after another at a show since The Black Crowes played the Warehouse earlier this year. Everyone was enjoying his or herself and Jamiroquai played a brilliantly energetic show (which caused which?). But shit, man. That little guy can sure as hell dance up a storm...