Music / Reviews
Review: Joshua Idehen, Electric – ‘Charisma, energy, positivity’
Joshua Idehen didn’t so much start his set at Electric Bristol as take hold of the room.
He came on stage like a preacher, dressed in white, moving with the energy of a pastor ready to shake something out of it.
It didn’t take long to feel what he was there to do. Early on he said, “Depression cannot hit a moving target,” and that idea sat at the centre of everything that followed. He spoke about how, when he moves, he doesn’t feel sadness. That landed with me.
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The sound, driven by his DJ, leaned into 90s dance influences with slick, well placed samples, and it felt properly nostalgic.
He gave so much throughout, real charisma, energy and positivity, and everyone was fully committed to him when he demanded audience participation, getting us to move to the chant of “shake it off” again and again, like a pastor trying to rid us of our demons.
The whole set was about movement, connection and letting go of whatever you’d walked in with. At one point, we were asked to turn to people we didn’t know, look them in the eye, shake their hand and say, “You are good.” It could have felt awkward, but it didn’t. It felt like a genuine exercise in empathy, and people leaned into it.
Joshua Idehen: love, positivity, movement
Something I noticed, or maybe didn’t notice, was the absence of phones. These days there’s often a sea of screens, but here it felt like people were actually present.
Whether I missed them because I was so focused on him or because they just weren’t there, I’m not sure. Either way, it added to the feeling that everyone was in it together. For 90 minutes, people listened, moved, watched and “shook off” whatever they’d brought with them.
Before one song, he addressed the “plus ones” he’d been joking about throughout the set, the people who might have been dragged along against their will.
He built it up for a while, saying he really did apologise for the words he was about to share, before insisting that, above everything, “I meant every word.” The crowd roared, and then came the whirring intro to Mum Does the Washing, the whole room fully with him.
Since the show I’ve listened to the new album again and, while it’s strong, it doesn’t quite capture what happens live.
The energy in the room, his delivery, it’s infectious. You don’t really choose to move, you just do. It felt like the kind of set you’d want to stumble into at 3am in a tiny dance tent and lose yourself completely, or catch at sunset in a field, dancing with your nearest and dearest, moving without inhibition.
I left and went straight online to see where else he was playing: now I have to go to Shindig! That probably says enough.
Main image: La Cigale
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