Los Mondo Bongo, Champions, Westbourne (From Dorset Echo)

Los Mondo Bongo, Champions, Westbourne

6:17pm Sunday 21st March 2010 in

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TONIGHT is a night for reclaiming the true meaning of words devalued by overuse.

In a culture obsessed by the twin banalities of celebrity and reality, the captain of the pub football team is as likely to gain the epithet “legend” as men like Joe Strummer.

How, then, to preserve Strummer’s reputation – to do justice to the incendiary talent behind London Calling and White Man In Hammersmith Palais?

Fortunately, we have Los Mondo Bongo – five top-flight musicians who knew or worked with Strummer, and whose belief in his music courses through every note.

These are successful and gifted musicians in their own right – men whose telephones ring when the careers of lesser talents than Strummer’s require a boost (“Hello? This is Robbie Williams...”).

Alarm frontman Mike Peters delivers an eerily accurate facsimile of Strummer’s raucous bark, and on Yalla Yalla particularly, his voice is an instrument of true gravitas. The same song provides a showcase for the taut, restrained work of lead guitarist Steve Harris, whose understated virtuosity adds driving riffs, chiming arpeggios and incendiary solos to the evening’s entertainment.

A magnificent duel between percussionist Pablo Cook and drummer Smiley Bernard ignites Rock the Casbah, and drives set closers London Calling and White Riot, both taken at full throttle, to the delight of a delirious audience.

Highlights include the subdued and intriguing Armageddon Times, a superbly rendered Safe European Home, and the lyrically sublime X-Ray Style. So this is not a “tribute” – rather five musicians capable of doing justice to some of the best songs ever written, with a passion entirely removed from clichés of marketers.

Support comes from Brighton’s excellent King Porter Stomp, a ska band fronted by Jonesy, punctuated by a lively three-piece horn section.