The Go! Team - 20 Years On

It’s 20 years since the release of The Go! Team’s debut album ‘Thunder, Lightning, Strike’ and to celebrate the band returned to Bristol after a sold out gig in The Fleece back in 2022.

The Go! Team burst onto the scene back in 2004 putting the disco in discordant & red limiting the levels and emerging from a small bedroom concern in Brighton, emerged to take on the world.

Twenty years later the band, led by main man Ian Parton and firecracker MC Ninja, are still as exhilarating and life affirming as ever. They celebrated their genre defying debut LP performed in full as well as essential back-catalogue bangers.

They played the Mercury Prize-nominated album at The Marble Factory, part of the Motion warehouse complex in Bristol. It has become an integral part of the city's cultural scene, hosting various events and performances.

Combing indie, funk, jazz, hip-hop, folk and dance, it is the ultimate party album. As electrifying and spirited as it was two decades ago, the seven-piece group deliver on all that energy and more.

It is so exhilarating and vibrant that it feels like they are a brand new group playing their current record.

Every member plays their part with all the vivacity; two drummers help to perfectly recreate the punchy percussion, MC Ninja displays boundless energy and Ian Parton, plays the harmonica like it is the most essential party instrument.

Performing the album in order means one of their biggest hits, “Ladyflash”, is played as the second song. Frontperson Ninja introduces it by explaining that they knew they had made it when the track was played in the Eastenders café.

There are plenty of people in the audience who do not look old enough to have been alive when the album was first released which is perhaps testament to its unfading influence. It may also have something to do with “Get It Together” being used in the LittleBigPlanet video game.

The closing two tracks – “Huddle Formation” and “Everyone’s a V.I.P. to Someone” – are a fitting finish to the main set. Ninja explains that, in the early days, they would be called back for encores after that finale but did not have any additional material to play.

But tonight the Brighton-based band return for a seven song encore taking us through highlights of their other six albums. Songs like “Mayday” and “Rolling Blackouts” showcase that they are more than one great album and there is a wealth of wonderful music throughout the rest of their discography.