The Jewel Cruise ship, a 300-capacity, two-tiered affair with full bar service below and canopied seating above was the flotilla for our evening’s festivities. The band, all nine members of them plus their equipment, were wedged tightly into the first floor front tip of the boat on a stage that was obviously meant for a smaller troupe. Still, the band left ample space between themselves and the dance floor for their fans to get down, because Urban Sun is first and foremost a group that is gonna make you moooooovve, baby. Even if you think you can’t dance, ain’t got no soul, no damn rhythm, and have two left feet, these boys will bring something out of ya, you didn’t know ya had in ya.

Vocalist Joe Trombino and his brother, guitarist Rob Buckley, together with bassist Zach Abramson, keyboardist Rich Formidoni, drummer Lex Dunbar, conga/percussionist Theo Moore, saxophonist Gerard O’Shea, trumpeter Emilio Bizga, and baritone saxophonist Ariel Levine meld together into such a tight, cohesive unit, blending elemental structures from their various pasts in funk, rock and soul to form a hot, slick, sliding cohesion of funking, slaboliciousness. (They themselves state influences as varied as The Meters, Stevie Wonder, Sly and The Family Stone, and Jamiroquai.)

The boat pushed off from the dock at a little past 8pm, while the skies were still pre-dusk, and started to circle the island of Manhattan. As soon as the boat got out into the East River proper and took up her steady cruising speed, the jamming started in earnest, with the kicking off of the first of the night’s two searingly long sets with “Shout It Out”, “Coleslaw”, and “Destination” back to back, getting the crowd moving enough to make navigating the upper deck a little more strenuous than the normal strength of the gnarly tides of the waters surrounding NYC.

From there on out, it was all smiling, fun, smooth, groove, lovin’ funk fun for the next three hours. I have yet to experience a bad sensation at an Urban Sun show…and I go to a lot of different kinds of shows. I just don’t think it’s a possibility.

Urban Sun, with the combination of their own tight, syncretic song structuring and seismic syncopatic funkiness are poised on the precipice of true flight. Watch and see.

FIRST SET

SHOUT IT OUT
COLESLAW
DESTINATION
HAMMER
JUST KISSED
GOOD BEAT
SOLITUDE
CELEBRATE (EARTH, WIND, & FIRE)
GROOVE ON
FLY AWAY
BOOT CAMP
PRACTICE ME

SECOND SET

REALIZE
SERVE CHILLED
PEOPLE SAY (THE METERS)
TAKE WHAT COMES
NO DIGGITY (BLACKSTREET)
EASY RIDIN
FIRST TIME
ALL ABOARD
TOP OF THE WORLD
LIL BROTHER
RISE UP

ENCORES:
41 OUNCES
SING A SIMPLE SONG (SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE)
SUPERSTITION (STEVIE WONDER)
SNEAKIN SALLY (ROBERT PALMER)