The LA-based funk-soul-jazz-hip hop virtuoso, born Stephen Bruner, first built his reputation as a bass
prodigy via session work with Erykah Badu and Flying Lotus. He’s an artist with music in his blood – the
son of Ronald Bruner Sr – a globally renowned Motown session drummer who has performed with The
Temptations and Diana Ross, so it’s understandable he might want to show off a bit. But there is such a
thing, it emerges, as “too much”.
‘I feel weird,’ he tells the crowd. After about three songs, everyone else does, too
Thundercat convulses and looks to the heavens in rapture as he plays tracks from the least accessible end of
his musical spectrum, after throwing everyone in the deep end with “Captain Stupido” from his latest
album, Drunk. “I feel weird,” he tells the crowd. After about three songs, everyone else does, too.
Some 40 minutes of thrashing, experimental jazz follow, through which you have to strain to hear a melody,
before Bruner plays “Friend Zone” (the Stranger Things soundtrack meets Pharrell) and the relief in the hall
is palpable. The crowd stands, unable to resist the beat of the funky revenge track.
Thundercat laughs gleefully when he sees fans on their feet for him, then comes out with one of his many
strange outbursts of the night, a line from The Big Lebowski: “Do you see what happens when you fuck a
stranger in the ass? I think that’s the funniest line ever.” Then five seconds later: “What?”
For the second half of the show, the audience is plunged back into Bruner’s overwhelming, and often
tedious, experimental jam session. While it’s a unique experience to watch such a skilled musician lose it on
stage, it mostly comes across as self-indulgent. More than one audience member walks out.
At one point, Bruner forgets the lyrics to a song, leading one fan to shout: “Google it!” before he abandons
the track entirely, explaining: “There’s too much going on, man.” And they’re the wisest words he’s spoken
all night.