This Wednesday, Mad Cool offered a refreshment in a small, intimate room in the capital to announce that their new headliner is Nine Inch Nails, joining Olivia Rodrigo, Alanis Morissette, etc. It is not surprising because Trent Reznor’s band has already given what has been one of the best concerts in the history of the festival. All of us who were there can attest.
In this presentation, another of Mad Cool’s confirmed performers, Jerub, came from London to offer an acoustic set of half a dozen songs, on guitar and piano. At these types of events, people are usually more focused on eating, drinking and gossiping than on the performance itself, but the truth is that Jerub managed to silence everyone with his pretty voice and friendliness. There was no shortage of the typical joke about having brought bad weather from Madrid. There will be no shortage of the typical journalistic license about the fact that his voice can melt the ice.
Born in Nigeria, but raised in Nottingham and currently residing in the British capital, Jerub started playing on the BBC a couple of seasons ago. Some DJs from the public network, and colleagues like Arlo Parks, supported him. In this presentation in Madrid, he got the audience to sing with him the title song from his EP ‘Finding My Feet’, from 2023.
Last year he released a 7-song album called ‘Carry the Load’. Jerub likes songs of improvement, those with optimistic lyrics or sad ones that serve to leave a pothole behind. A version of ‘Lift Me Up’ by Rihanna is usually not missing from her repertoire. Yes, there is usually a bit of epic, EDM undertow, or grandiloquence in their productions, as if designed to sound, effectively, on Radio One. Their live performance is much better than their studio music.
This was confirmed when Jerub sat down at the piano in the second part of his first time in Madrid, when he premiered a new song that we assume will be released throughout 2025, or when he played one of his biggest hits at the moment, the beautiful ‘You and I’, which was released in the fall of 2023. A simple heartbreak song that the first Sam Smith could have sung. It remains to be seen if it will be indicative of his future, or rather ‘There Till the End’ will be, his biggest hit at the moment, and close to Imagine Dragons.
Jerub will perform at Mad Cool on Thursday, July 10, the same day as Iggy Pop, Gracie Abrams, Kings of Leon, Weezer, Leon Bridges, Bright Eyes and Geordie Greep, among others. The poster for days is available on the Mad Cool website.
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