Ever see a gig and think, “Wow, that could have been way better, but it wasn’t really the band’s fault?” Well, that’s how it went down on Saturday when Amadou & Mariam played to a mostly stunted, seated audience on a stark and cavernous stage known as the Beck’s Music Box. Now, before this comes off as too pessimistic, rest assured that the Music Box is not a bad venue, only that certain things work there, and other things really don’t. For example, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra doing their thing in front of a fully seated audience? That’d work. A band with enough cash to deck the stage out in massive visual screens, their own intensive lighting show, and an audience packed to the brim ready to give nothing else but pure, unadulterated and joyous dancing? That’d work.

But in this instance, the band would have worked a lot better in an alternate venue – smaller, indoors, tighter, a little grungier, with more involved lighting. In short, some atmosphere. Now the PIAF already hosts music performances in venues other than Becks Music Box (Antony & the Johnsons in the Perth Concert Hall, for example) so in this instance Amadou & Mariam might have benefited from such a change.

Nonetheless, the music itself was amazing, mixing together songs from 2008’s Welcome to Mali and their 2005 release Dimanche à Bamako. Numbering five players in all; one keyboardist, a drummer, an acoustic percussionist, bass player, and of course, Amadou on guitar/vocals and Mariam on vocals. Together they played flawlessly, though one couldn’t help but wish for an even fuller band to fill in the extra instrumentation featured on the albums (trumpets, flutes, etc). As an example of this problem, when they performed Djuru, which in the recorded version features Toumani Diabate on the kora, the instrument in question was replaced by a synthesised version played through the keyboard, which was the sonic equivalent of replacing a juicy ripe mango with plastic display fruit.

To make up for this lack of extra instrumentation, their acoustic percussionist (on djembe, congas, etc) appeared to have been imported from a purple sub-tropic jungle from a solar system far, far away—unbelievably talented and almost shamanic in his powers, he was probably one of the main ingredients in getting the audience to actually dance on occasion.

This brings us to the central problem of the night – the lack of movement from the audience. The question is, who pays $40 of hard-earned cash to see what has been described as ‘euphoric Afro Blues… exuberant and full of spirit,’ only to sit at the back and observe like it’s some sort of curious cultural display, like being at the zoo and watching the flamingo do a courtship dance? This is POP MUSIC – it features DRUMS, and BASS, combined to make DANCEABLE RHYTHMS. Perhaps an area should be drawn out in chalk around the stage where only dancing is allowed, so that the few individuals who aren’t petrified by the observance of others can have the room needed to thrash about and jive in a manner appropriate to the music being played? And if that area gets filled, and overflows into the static zone, all the better for everyone.

Interestingly enough, the after-party involved way more dancing and exuberance, and in general it had the sort of vibe that Amadou & Mariam desperately needed. Catered by Mo DJ and DJ Mo Laudi, they had the advantage of playing to a much younger and generally more appreciative audience.

This was due to the fact that it was free entry to all, so pretty much 90% of audience that paid to sit and watch ‘euphoric Afro Blues’ had to go home to bed because, you know, it’s a Saturday night, and we wouldn’t want to be up late or anything like that, as we have brunch with Martha and Bernard at 8am tomorrow, and oh my, our laundry is awfully backed up – you know how long that takes! Anyway – the DJ’s proved their internal ratio of water to blood was skewed by a heavy dose of cool, which exuded aromatically from the pores in their flesh as they mixed together a whole host of genres from jungle, to trance, drum and bass, some of Amadou & Mariam’s songs together with samples from The Lion King and even a Venga Boys song (an inspired move, for sure)