Billed as "The Short Attention Span Theater Tour", Kid Koala's show is about as interactive as you could wish for. Famed as much for his skill with a pencil as well as a stylus, Koala has brought some friends, a bingo game, a projector, some short animated videos and a birthday cake to Camden's Lock 17 on a packed "school night", as he
delights in reminding us. And of course there's the music - a mere nine turntable decks laid out round the small stage in the shape of a band, i.e. the twin decks at the back responsible for the rhythm section and the "lead" at the front taking on the vocals.
It's all great fun, from the San Antonio spinner DJ Chester's set, billed as the Texas DJ Massacre, containing revamps of Berlin (no, really!), InXS and the legendary 50
Pence tune In The Pub - class. Then it's on to the wacky Lederhosen Lucil, an impish figure bearing a resemblance to Shell out of TV's Bad Girls, who bobs up and down in front of a keyboard and drum machine, with effects - we even get a train solo for our money, not to mention songs about dried apricots, credit cards and people who suck.
All warming up nicely then, and Kid Koala's arrival is given a rapturous welcome. With his sidekicks DJ P-Love (who apparently has a "kick ass jerk chicken recipe") and Chester, he gets the biggest cheers for cut 'n' splice songs such as Drunk Trumpet, where a Louis Armstrong riff gets the treatment, and a tampered version of Moon
River, apparently the only song his mum will listen to.
It's an extraordinary sight watching the three close friends bobbing and weaving on stage, a mass of wires, decks and vinyl, the trio clearly enjoying themselves as they throw the musical leads around. In between tracks, where up to eight records need to be changed at a time, there's humorous animations from Monkmus, whose twisted cast of birds and animals are instantly likable. And then there's the bingo, made up of Koala's sketches. No full house for me, although I did get the fire breathing ogre, the loaf of bread and the hi-tech light show! If only
I'd got Grandmaphone, one of his central comic characters, I would have been there. Not to worry though - this particular full house had a great evening.
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