Jamie Lidell & Konono No.1 | Harbourfront Centre, Toronto

Jamie Lidell is clearly the best kept secret in music, and proved furthermore with a fantastic free performance at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto Saturday evening. This shaggily dressed Brit has the best pipes I've ever heard, and are reminiscent of Wilson Pickett, Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder. Also, being one half of the IDM duo Super_Collider, Lidell provides all his own beats, either with synths, laptop or incredibly looping his beat-boxing through all of the equipment he had.

During his live shows, Lidell likes to exeriment with his beats, and when he finds something, he goes with it. This led to many different beats backing some of the tracks from his latest album "Multiply." This included an absolutely sick version of "What's the Use" backed with the beat of Eminem and Dre's "Guilty Conscience," even ridiculously acting out of part of the video.

Halfway through the set, Lidell announced he was bringing out a special guest, who I thought would maybe be Cristian Vogel (the other half of Super_Collider) or one of last nights acts (Juan Maclean, Prefuse 73 or MSTRKRFT) whom I sadly missed. Instead it was Chilly Gonzales, an electro-rap pianist who was playing later in the evening. Gonzalez provided music for the beautiful "Game For Fools," and for the rest of the set.

I could go on about this for hours, but there's no reason Jamie Lidell shouldn't be a star right now. He has the vocals, has a marvelous stage persona (he felt sorry for the crowd because they had to watch him and he got to watch the birds flying over the harbor), and the music had the whole crowd dancing. The only thing holding back is at heart he is clearly an electronic artist, despite the fact he has an amazing voice. Were he ever to throw out the electronics and bring in a backing band, who knows how big he could be.

After Jamie, my friends and I went in search of food, and the crowd filled in and we couldn't get anywhere near Konono No.1. While entertaining for a few minutes, the groups band of tribal music with a dash of electronics (which includes a PA system built from magnets and trash) wasn't anything dazzling, and my friends desired to head home.

Excitingly, this is the first of four days of concerts for me. Tomorrow I will be checking out the Weakerthans and the New Amsterdams back in Buffalo!