Thundercat review, Meltdown festival: Bass virtuoso performs an overwhelming, often tedious jam session

“Nobody move, there’s blood on the floor/ And I can’t find my heart,” Thundercat sings in his signature falsetto. The opening lyrics to the bass virtuoso’s most infectious single, “Them Changes”, seem entirely appropriate, considering he’s currently spilling his brand of lopsided, psychedelic soul across the stage.

Tonight’s concert is part of the Southbank Centre’s Meltdown festival, which was curated this year by disco veteran Nile Rodgers. Thundercat’s show at the Royal Festival Hall – a seated venue – makes for a rather awkward atmosphere when paired with such a lively musician, and the evening unfolds as a frantic 90 minutes of relentless crescendos and musical chaos.

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”.

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 f*** 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.