Late Night Orchestra
w/ DJ Anton Maz
Astor Theatre, Mount Lawley
Saturday, August 2 2025
After their national tour in 2024 celebrating the legacy of Portishead, ensemble-piece Late Night Orchestra returned to the Bristol sound with this tribute to Massive Attack and the trip-hop era, joined on the Astor Theatre stage by a rotating array of guest vocalists. This evening was a time portal back thirty years to the underground club scene, to those fuzzy misremembered moments of grimy corners, awkward acquaintance, and astonishing music.
Trip-hop, often – but not always – downbeat and melancholy, was the quieter, more meditative cousin of the brash, raucous, and insistent beats of the house and rave scenes. It was a genre that thrived in the less-hurried margins and continues to seem beloved by movie soundtracks, often when film characters attain cathartic self-discovery.
Local DJ Anton Maz was tonight’s support and brought to the space a delightful mix of Nineties ambient and Seventies funk. With industrial flavours that gave the slightest hint of metal in the mouth, Maz provided the audience a relaxed, almost gentle, on-ramp to the show, all with the cadence of a lullaby. In amongst the set were well known favourites, forgotten gems, and half-familiar instrumental pieces that tickled the edges of memory before escaping.
This evening’s guest vocalists were all treasured finds, perfectly suited to the tracks they were assigned. Katie Noonan’s performance resume by this stage is almost intimidating in its breadth and depth, whilst Adrian Eagle, Thandi Phoenix, and THNDO, equally accomplished in their own careers, were also superstars wonderfully matched with the material.
The setlist leant very deliberately into the actual Nineties – nothing beyond 1998 or Massive Attack’s third album “Mezzanine” – but these self-imposed boundaries already contained a surplus of stone-cold classics to work with.
After an overture that again played at the tendrils of the audience’s memory, Noonan came to the microphone to begin the concert with 1994’s “Better Things”. All chiselled blonde hair, relaxed professionalism, and ethereal voice, over the course of the evening Noonan excelled with an almost nonchalant ease.
From that strong start, the evening reached for the stratosphere extremely early with “Safe From Harm”, played as a duet between Eagle and THNDO, all the underlying menace of the original recording left intact. The first diversion from Massive Attack’s discography came with Unkle’s “Lonely Soul”, sung by Eagle with aplomb. Covering all the male vocals for the night, ARIA Award winner Eagle brought a thoroughly lived-in swagger to the stage.
When the opening bars to “Protection” began, it was as if a balloon had popped within the audience, a sharp and audible intake of breath that reverberated across the theatre, and catharsis had been attained. The earlier songs had been very much appreciated by the crowd, but “Protection” shot through the air like a sonic boom. Not to mention Phoenix’s stunning rendition of an already spectacular work, with more grit and sass to her delivery than the delicate vulnerability within Tracy Thorn’s original.
Then immediately into “Angel”, a colossal double-header paired with the piece before – Noonan’s voice soared into the Perth night air whilst Late Night Orchestra produced that iconic, crushing, yet somehow comforting, wall of sound as the song hit crescendo.
The trip-hop portion of the evening came into full view thereafter. Not limiting themselves to merely Massive Attack’s work, tonight’s performers had given themselves permission to extend their vision throughout the genre, and they did so here with vigour and obvious focus.
There followed tracks from Air, Everything But The Girl, Sneaker Pimps, Soul II Soul, and, of course, fellow Bristolians Portishead. A definite favourite within this portion, “Six Underground” had the audience in full-throated voice moreso than any other point of the night. At least, that is, until “Glory Box” began several minutes later.
As the night came in for landing and choices looped back to Massive Attack directly, “Unfinished Sympathy” as sung by THNDO was the sweetest dessert – itself an out-of-the-box immediate classic from debut album “Blue Lines”.
THNDO had brought soul, glamour, and artfulness to her vocals and performance all evening, all while shimmering magnificently in a metallic pantsuit. She happily sauntered stage right with a minute’s runtime remaining in the piece, and left the string quartet, front and almost centre the entire night, to close out as fabulously as the original violins had in 1991.
“Teardrop” was artful, achingly beautiful, and the utter highlight imagined even before the concert began, and the night ended on “Hymn of the Big Wheel”, one of Massive Attack’s deeper cuts, with the entire cast on stage to perform.
A spectacular evening of entertainment. The setlist was absolutely on point for those who lived the Nineties and showcased to best effect Massive Attack and the wider genre, for any younger attendees. Both Late Night Orchestra and the guest vocalists were fantastic in this latest collaboration, and whenever they again come west, another stellar, high-quality show will be all but guaranteed.