Madison Square Garden, NY, late 2019. A packed house. We see a stage, empty save for Woody Goss at the keys and a lone clarinetist serenading us with an exotic melody. Cheering erupts as band leader Jack Stratton emerges, crawling onto the stage and putting on a show of immense physical effort. Eventually, he leaps to his feet as Goss launches into ‘Tee Time’: ‘Ladies and babies, big children, little children, even the gentlemen, every single one of them – are you ready for tonight’s show of the Vulfpeck?’ Each band member is introduced in turn and runs onstage to wild enthusiasm from the audience. ‘No Xanax! No beta blockers! Fully adrenalised! Everything 20 per cent faster tonight! Are you ready?!’
Released in December 2019 as both a live album and a YouTube video, the Madison Square Garden live show was the culmination of a buildup of nearly a decade of cult-like enthusiasm surrounding the funk band. Vulfpeck – an imagined German equivalent of the classic American rhythm sections of the 1960s and ‘70s, like the Funk Brothers and the Wrecking Crew – emerged in 2011, formed by Stratton and some friends from the University of Michigan. The premise is bizarre, yes, but bear with me. Not only is the band invested in a wacky quasi-alter ego of itself, this is abundantly backed up by genuinely astonishing musicianship, with several band members switching freely between instruments, and fan favourite Joe Dart producing bass solo after incredible bass solo (find the track ‘Beastly’ on YouTube for more of this).
‘Theo, kick that drum!’ The band launches into a raucous performance of the joyous and high-energy ‘Animal Spirits’, from 2016’s The Beautiful Game. From there, we are treated to a medley of some of the tightest funk imaginable (‘Cory Wong’ / ‘My First Car’ / ‘Tesla’), performed with truly unacceptable levels of groove. As the last note of this glorious melange sounds, Stratton turns to the audience: ‘Now there’s a lot of over-stimulation, a lot of loud noises. We’re getting worked up into a silly excitement. But we wanna ground ourselves. This isn’t typical but it’s… it’s becoming faddish.’ He proceeds to get his mum on stage to lead 14,000 obliging concertgoers in a slightly tongue-in-cheek ‘arena breath-work meditation’.
And this is another aspect of the band’s appeal. The whole operation is self-contained; Vulfpeck have made waves of their own success as a self-run band with no management or major label behind them. They started out recording YouTube videos in a basement in Ann Arbor – and, in a way that beautifully symbolises the band’s homegrown quality, they had their set designer drive the furniture from that Michigan basement to New York and reconstructed the room on stage, with various band members taking the opportunity to recline on it throughout the show.
The show now hits its soul-infused stride, featuring vocals from Joey Dosik and Charles Jones (on the heart-rending ‘Running Away’ and ‘Baby I Don’t Know Oh Oh’), and frequent collaborator Antwaun Stanley (on the unbelievably energising ‘1612’, ‘Funky Duck’, and ‘Aunt Leslie’). Now, Stratton begins to pace the stage, delivering a speech in his quasi-persona of the ‘founder of Vulf Records’; ‘I am a shepherd of greatness. […] Some say polymath, some say dilettante. I specialise in everything. I get Tony Robbins results at TJ Maxx prices.’ He goes on to recount the story of the band, as a ‘group of young mountaineers [who] set out on a trail, a treacherous path, with no rope—no label, no management’, and who had triumphantly ascended the summit of ‘Mount Madison Square Garden’. Even conveyed through the eccentric persona, it’s inspiring stuff.
Honestly, I can’t think of a more charismatic, yet sincere, group of musicians; each member has their own engaging charm: Stratton, the ‘shepherd of greatness’; Dart, the sunglasses-clad bass virtuoso; Katzman, the feel-good showman; Goss, the buttoned-up piano man; Wong, the funky, energetic guitarist. The songs oscillate between straight-up funk (‘Beastly’ and ‘Cory Wong’), indulgent soul set-pieces (‘Running Away’ and ‘Wait for the Moment), and a kind of Vulfpeck-brand synthesis of pop, funk, and soul (‘1612’, ’Back Pocket’, and ‘Christmas In L.A.’), where the band really finds its voice. There is something slightly, and knowingly, silly about the concept. But this obvious joyousness and fun is what makes Vulfpeck endearing. It’s infectious, energising. All the eccentricities of the group can seem alienating at first – I know they did for me – but this is a band you have to take on its own terms. The wonderful thing is that everyone is invited to be in on the joke.
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