Reggie Watts is one of a kind. Blending beatboxing, looping, nonsensical monologues and a myriad different characters into his sets, his comedy is like nothing you've ever seen before and hard to put into words. Emma McAlpine has a bash.
How exactly does one review a Reggie Watts gig? I'm not going to lie, it's a toughie. After the gig I look at my notepad to see what I've managed to scribble down and I might well be looking at the diary of a madman: "Beautiful barbells", "urban indoor settings" and "flabby shapes." Hmmm. It sure sounded funny as hell at the time. Of course, there is absolutely no point trying to make notes at a Reggie Watts show as his comedy makes little sense on paper. He might just be the funniest peddlar of nonsense I've ever come across.
As his sets are almost entirely improvised, songs are packed full of amusing non-sequiturs like "Daddy likes poundcakes/Daddy likes wishing stones" or "Baby take your time/I can whip up some eggs and make you come." He shifts effortlessly from one persona to the next, one minute inhabiting the role of a university lecturer, giving an authoritative talk on 'diminuitive thinking' before moving on to a Jamaican accent: ("Fuck da tobacco! Smoke tough!")
His octave range is astounding: drawing inspiration from musical genres including hip hop, French rap, opera, jazz and afro-beat to name but a few, he can sing in a Prince-like high pitch or a death metal growl. His midrange singing voice is particularly powerful and occasionally, as it soars and envelops the room with a beautifully soulful melody, you forget you're watching comedy at all.
Also on the circular stage of the Roundhouse are a keyboard and (here's one for the techno geeks) a 2880 Electro Harmonix multi-track looper. At one point, Watts replicates an 808 drum machine noise. He then records it and loops it onto the machine, hops across the stage, plays a few bars on his keyboard, records and loops that in with the drum beat and sings over the top, organically creating a tune made out of his own vocals and music.
Another time, he holds a mic to his neck, creating a heart beat sound in his throat while beatboxing through his mouth into another. Regularly, I find myself moving from erractic outbursts of laughter to incredulity. "What is going on?" "How is he doing that?" and "Did he just impersonate a British cat?" are a selection of thoughts that run through my head in quick succession.
As the gig draws to a close, Watts leaves the stage to rapturous applause and shouts for more. He runs back on stage, with his enormous Sideshow Bob afro comically swaying in the air, running rings round the crowd and slapping hands. Then, in typically subversive style, he says in cut-glass English "I'm going to take you on a little audio journey of your city. See if it rings a bell" before slipping into a Gregorian chant that really couldn't be further from my imaginary London soundtrack. Unexpected and hilarious, it sums up the Reggie Watts experience in a nutshell.
Read Spoonfed's interview with Reggie Watts
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