Songs in the B of life

Brand extension – the process by which companies help consumers understand the core meaning of their product and strengthen brand franchise.
That’s the marketing concept behind the Bacardi B-Live experience, a global programme of festival-based music events, which was trailered in London last week.
Essentially, Bacardi have pledged to showcase a mix of emerging and established regional artists through B-Live, providing them with the opportunity to collaborate for one-off shows across the world.
Additionally, Bacardi B-live radio has been launched, taking the entire concept of marketing to new levels. A number of DJs and re-mixers have been drafted in to provide tunes created exclusively for the brand’s radio station, which will be available around the clock online and on 3G mobile handsets.
Irish music fans will get to experience the B-Live experience first hand when its tent rolls into Punchestown for Oxegen and Stradbally for the much-anticipated Electric Picnic at the beginning of September.
Last week, the B-Live concept kicked off in London with a spectacular statement-of-intent that culminated in a live show featuring new collaborations between flamboyant DJ-producer Dimitri From Paris, super-size diva Chaka Khan, dance/funk ensemble Los Amigos Invisibles and Roy Ayers – known as the Godfather of Acid Jazz.
For the opening act, London’s Sketch restaurant hosted a press conference with journalists flying in from as far afield as Mexico and Puerto Rico. True to diva form, Khan ran an hour late, which gave us enough time to check out Sketch’s dizzyingly modern interior (let’s just say that we wouldn’t want to be served magic mushrooms before a trip to the gem-encrusted bathroom!).
“Tonight is not so much about a mixture of styles as a mixture of people,” Dimitri from Paris revealed. “We like people to energise and to get involved. It’s important when onstage to release oneself – and to want people to enjoy and release themselves.”
“It’s not often you get to see musicians wing it,” Ayers noted, referring to the fact that, until tonight, the super-group haven’t even shared a rehearsal space.
“The process is organic, funky and soul-based,” Dimitri added. “I like to leave room for accidents to happen.”
Now installed at the top table, Khan noted that she was ‘just glad to be in the mix’.
“Music is conducive to collaboration, so it’s great to take two or three genres of music and make up a new baby,” she smiled. “This could be done more often as it’s a wonderful thing.”
The show took place at the renowned Institute Of Contemporary Arts on Pall Mall, which was awash with anticipation and Mojitos. .
Under Dimitri from Paris’ watchful eye, Los Amigos Invisibles kicked things off with a sort of Latin-infused big-beat, a trendy fusion of jazz and samba – the perfect soundtrack, you might say, to the Bacardi lifestyle.
Khan took to the stage for a large-lunged version of the perennial crowd-pleaser ‘I Feel For You’, while ‘I’m Every Women’, devoted to ‘all the pretty girls’, naturally raised the roof.
Dressed in a lime-green jacket and armed with his trademark vibraphone, Ayers proved as delightfully jovial on stage as he had been in person. His jazz-funk set was infectious, a delicious blend of old-skool charm and new-skool wizardry. On his watch, the ICA was transformed into a prototype Miami-on-the-Mall, ‘Our Time Is Coming’ in particular sounding like consummate festival fare.
Then it was Chaka Khan and Roy Ayers together, the strains of Ayers’ ahead-of-its-time classic ‘Everybody Loves The Sunshine’ starting up. What followed was a gorgeously soulful rendition of the track, blessedly devoid of a showy, big-beat makeover.
On this evidence, the possibilities for future Bacardi B-live events are impressive. Roll on the festival season.