This is supposedly the final UK tour from New York funk veterans ESG, although you'd be forgiven for taking this claim with a pinch of salt given that the band have announced their goodbyes a few times before. Still, retirement would be a real loss: ESG are purveyors of a universal good-time music and their unpretentious style fits this working men's club setting perfectly.
The band are made up of the Scroggins sisters, now reduced in number (most notably absent is original member Deborah, who sued the rest for royalties in 2012). Their songs feature passages of stripped-back, Latin-tinged funk shunted into one another with rudimentary tom-tom fills, while vocalist Renee delivers staccato whoops and skipping-rope chants on top. It's a sound that took shape within the melting pot of 80s New York, blending hip-hop, no wave and salsa, and although it was revisited by punk-funk groups such as the Rapture in the mid-noughties, ESG's original version differs by being utterly unencumbered by cool.
The best track of the night is UFO, whose creepy guitar effects have been sampled on over 300 other songs. "We're going to play a simple song," says Renee, and its minimalism and unchanging minor guitar line leaves pure dread pooled on the dancefloor. This is bookended with less psychologically fraught party jams. They open with You're No Good, which conforms to the first of their pair of stock tropes: a slow, tripping groove that keeps catching its toe on a paving stone. Come Away is another classic in this style, full of coy, eyelash-batting flirtation.
Their other mode is strident 4/4 strutting, with congas breaking up the march, and Dance and Tiny Sticks both jive by at top speed. Their newer material stands up strongly too, with some steady cowbell making My Street sassy and muscular. New track Watching revels in voyeurism with a killer chorus of "you got your eyes all over me".
"All their songs sound the same," mutters one audience member towards the end, but to complain about that is to miss the point. ESG are that rare thing: a band that has their own sound and are wise enough to be proud of it.
