Uptown Funk
Mark Ronson ft. Bruno MarsSeptember 2015Newbridge MemoJon Lilygreen - lead vocals
Uptown Funk was everywhere in 2015, and it quietly separated the bands that could play it from the ones that could not.
The difficulty is that almost nothing is happening. The bass line is sparse, the guitar is playing tiny stabs, and the space between the parts is the point - it is a record built out of gaps. A band that fills those gaps kills it stone dead. Everyone has to hold back and hit exactly together, and there is nowhere to bury a player who is slightly behind.
Jon Lilygreen takes the vocal, which needs the swagger to carry a song that is largely attitude. The horns do the heavy lifting on the hook.
Ten years on it has settled into being a reliable mid-set dancefloor number rather than the request it once was, and it still goes down at pretty much every wedding and party we play.
Filmed at Newbridge Memo in the same run of sessions as Beat It and The Joker.
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The Brotherhood are a Newport-based South Wales function band, playing weddings, parties and corporate events across Wales and the West.
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