The world music authorities would, frankly, have been shocked. Three weeks ago Manu Chao was awarded the "innovator" gong in the Radio 3 world music awards. Showing disdain for the category and the categorisation, Chao stayed away from the ceremony. It was just as well. His brand of performance would have seemed out of place alongside the Gypsy troupes and throat warblers of the world music canon.
On stage at Shepherd's Bush for the penultimate night of a sold-out mini-tour, Chao was doing his best to confound expectations. From the tattooed, bare-chested bassist, who would have fitted in neatly in the front row at Twickenham, to the kilted, oversized troll on keyboards, Chao's band had the attitude and charisma of a bunch of prop forwards. And the music they produced for the opening hour had as much to do with the beautifully crafted, touching songs of lack and loss on Chao's solo albums as rugby has to do with curling.
Chao, born in France 40 years ago to Spanish parents, is enormously successful in Europe but far less than a household name here. Nevertheless, he has his fans: his anti-corporate stance and the tenderness of his music have won him an assortment of followers, from the Genoa protesters to the arbiters at Radio 3.
But those who went to this concert expecting to hear material from his two solo albums, Clandestino and Proxima Estacion, were in for a rude disappointment. The joy and optimism of his songs made itself heard, but Chao's idea of world music in concert is to appeal to the audience's instinct to jump up and down very fast when confronted with a group of musicians jumping up and down very fast while playing very fast music. Occasionally a hint of a recognisable melody would slip through. But mostly we were faced with a full-on assault of thrash ska: it was Bad Manners as played by the Ramones. Joined by two rappers, Chao's delicate voice was lost in the mix, unable to compete with the thud and blunder of his band. It was all quite deliberate.
There was an interlude, after which Chao returned apparently a different person: the person we thought we had come to see. Seated centre stage, strumming a semi-acoustic guitar, he ran through half a dozen beguiling songs. In such a mood, there is something of the great Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso about Chao. But he soon moved on, or back, to the party punk sound of his previous group Mano Negra, finishing with a speed-metal version of C'mon Everybody. The lyrics of the Eddie Cochran classic were changed to the word "marijuana". It was a fittingly silly cartoon ending.
