James Chance is to the saxophone what Jerry Lee Lewis is to the piano. In fact, with his loosened neck-tie, lurching, flopping duck’s arse quiff, electrified moves and evangelical preacher’s approach to wooing a crowd, he could be Jerry Lee’s scummier Lower East Side-dwelling kid brother.

Always light years ahead of his time, back in the ‘70s Chance invented the ‘80s by melding punk and funk and dousing it with burst of free-jazz saxophone, Sun Ra-inspired head-fuck organ noise. And organic disco beats. When not attacking audience members – a common occurrence – with his militantly-arranged line-ups and ever-changing changing monikers (a stint in Lydia lunch’s Teenage Jesus & The Jerks was followed by James White & The Blacks, The Flaming Demonics, James Chance & The Sardonic Symphonics), he taught white punks to dance like James Brown and wrestled the saxophone back from incidental music on romantic comedies when the man kisses the woman against a background of the twinkling Manhattan skyline. He also made the saxophone sound like a weapon, and his juddering rhythms are directly responsible for the likes of Sonic Youth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Talking Heads, Jon Spencer – not to mention The Rapture and pretty every much every undernourished member of the Timmy Mallett-dressing East London nerk fraternity who thinks a cowbell and a hi-hat is all you need to be a master of da fonk.

Close your eyes and tonight could be CBGBs in ’78, at that point when punk and new wave was furrowing its brow, cranking up the distortion, discovering John Coltrane and loft spaces and embarking on what would be dubbed No Wave; a deconstructionist approach to rock ‘n’ roll where melody was sacrificed for the DNA-shifting power of dissonance.

So, we’re treated to an hour-long workout of Chance’s trademark wailing saxophone, a rhythm section that’s taut and tight and casually turns on a sixpence at every available opportunity, waves of wah-wah guitar and, in the midst of it all, a 54-year-old casually skanking and jerking between keyboard and sax while singing, grunting, howling and finger-popping his way through a set of signature tunes like ‘Sax Maniac’, ‘Contort Yourself’ and ‘Stained Sheets’

“This one’s called ‘I Can’t Stand Myself’,” says Chance.
“But you’re cool as fuck!” shouts one rapt fan down the front.
No-one disagrees.