Friday, July 09, 2004
'Why look darling, our favourite 9-piece latino-hiphop-funk-rock group of popular west-coast entertainers Ozomatli are going to perform a musical fantasia at a nearby Dublingham venue. Pray let us attend, uneasy in the knowledge that we are highly likely to be less hip, less cool and less young than everyone else in the venue'
That's the gist of what went through my mind, anyway, as I discovered one of the best live bands I've ever seen before were coming to the city to play their first ever shows. Despite neither of us being not even close to middle-aged there is still a certain feeling of any concert which has youth-appeal, by which I mean to say it's not for purely musical reasons that some punters turn up, then we don't belong. We see live music more than most, perhaps more than anyone who isn't paid to attend, and every time I enter a concert hall I feel too young and too scruffy. Yet when I enter a sweaty cavern somewhere on the hipper side of town, i feel too old and too scruffy. We try not to give a shit, though, since we're only here for the music. She succeeds more than I, but then she's younger, smarter and prettier. Thank god. You know everyone refers to the cognoscenti but never point out who they are? It is I. I've seen it all and I know it all. I would travel halfway round the world to see the right performer but I wouldn't leave the bathroom if someone shit is playing a gig in my lounge.
Anyway, we turn up to see Ozomatli and every damn fucker in the house is dressed in regulation 'yes i'm cool' clothes. Many of them are acting up in the bar like it's the end of the world tomorrow so they'd better get every last anxiety off their chest in a rampant display of peacockishness. Uncomfortability reigns until a guy walks right in front of me looking as lost as we are. He might, charitably, pass for 50 with his baldness and straight-talking dad-clothes. He's not cool at all and I love him for it. He makes me feel at ease and not just because he's there to be stared at, deflecting 'you dont belong here' looks which were surely thrown in my direction. What options are there? Is he a reviewer? He doesn't look the part, not jaded or faded and besides anything else, he's early. Does he love the music? It's possible but fuck knows how. They're completely unknown here and later it turns out, when the band ask - the only people in the room to have heard them before turns out to be me and the missus. If anyone else is here because they've heard of them, it's down to their association with the awesome but hijacked-by-the-hip Jurassic 5
Oh hang on, there's a bunch of blokes in their 30's sitting at that table playing dominoes and shouting. Yes, they're hip but they're old and more relaxed than many others in the room. They don't care to look around to see who's watching them which I suppose puts them at a different stage of self-absorbtion than 'the kids' or I. Actually, they look familiar. I've definitely seen them before but the obvious penny doesn't drop until one of them gets out his trombone and goes outside for practice. It's only the bloody band, innit.
The gig itself is quite phenomenal. The stage at the Crawdaddy is the size of 2 kitchen tables, the space in front where we stand no bigger than my tiny flat. Just the get a 3 piece horn section, bass, guitar, 3 percussionists, a rapper and dj onto it and moving around it is worthy of some respect. I last saw them on a stage the size of a stage, shall we say, in a field as big as a field. A venue far more appropriate for a band who were built for festival appearances. Yet they manage to run through 15 tunes with all the energy, committment and dangerous choreography as if they were playing to 2000 not 200 (maybe less, in fact). The crowd go ballistic almost immediately - I think the penny drops for most of them during the first song when it veers from hip-hop to salsa to a rock-out and stays hummable throughout. Nobody knows the tunes and nobody cares - it's all catchy and immediate stuff but never throwaway nor trite. True, we can't hear the raps clearly and even the singalong chants are in muffled spanish that nobody seems to catch but it doesn't matter a hoot. They have so much fun that at the end of the gig they all leave the stage and take the brass and percussion into the crowd where they play for another 15 mintues cycling through some heavy batucada-like patterns while sticking in snatches of popular melodies like 'Sesame Street' and that dumb 'Ole' chant you hear at football matches. Everyone is, quite frankly, shocked to shit. A part of me wishes it was as unexpected for us, all surprises and delight at the unfamiliar musical proposition offered to us by these guys. But then I remember back to that july night 3 years ago at WOMAD where they absolutely destroyed us, along with our 2000 or so companions. These young Dublin pups knew nothing when they came here tonight.
And to cap it all, because we obviously look so damn cool, a nice lady standing outside the venue gave us free tickets for Blackalicious at the same place. Tonight!
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That's the gist of what went through my mind, anyway, as I discovered one of the best live bands I've ever seen before were coming to the city to play their first ever shows. Despite neither of us being not even close to middle-aged there is still a certain feeling of any concert which has youth-appeal, by which I mean to say it's not for purely musical reasons that some punters turn up, then we don't belong. We see live music more than most, perhaps more than anyone who isn't paid to attend, and every time I enter a concert hall I feel too young and too scruffy. Yet when I enter a sweaty cavern somewhere on the hipper side of town, i feel too old and too scruffy. We try not to give a shit, though, since we're only here for the music. She succeeds more than I, but then she's younger, smarter and prettier. Thank god. You know everyone refers to the cognoscenti but never point out who they are? It is I. I've seen it all and I know it all. I would travel halfway round the world to see the right performer but I wouldn't leave the bathroom if someone shit is playing a gig in my lounge.
Anyway, we turn up to see Ozomatli and every damn fucker in the house is dressed in regulation 'yes i'm cool' clothes. Many of them are acting up in the bar like it's the end of the world tomorrow so they'd better get every last anxiety off their chest in a rampant display of peacockishness. Uncomfortability reigns until a guy walks right in front of me looking as lost as we are. He might, charitably, pass for 50 with his baldness and straight-talking dad-clothes. He's not cool at all and I love him for it. He makes me feel at ease and not just because he's there to be stared at, deflecting 'you dont belong here' looks which were surely thrown in my direction. What options are there? Is he a reviewer? He doesn't look the part, not jaded or faded and besides anything else, he's early. Does he love the music? It's possible but fuck knows how. They're completely unknown here and later it turns out, when the band ask - the only people in the room to have heard them before turns out to be me and the missus. If anyone else is here because they've heard of them, it's down to their association with the awesome but hijacked-by-the-hip Jurassic 5
Oh hang on, there's a bunch of blokes in their 30's sitting at that table playing dominoes and shouting. Yes, they're hip but they're old and more relaxed than many others in the room. They don't care to look around to see who's watching them which I suppose puts them at a different stage of self-absorbtion than 'the kids' or I. Actually, they look familiar. I've definitely seen them before but the obvious penny doesn't drop until one of them gets out his trombone and goes outside for practice. It's only the bloody band, innit.
The gig itself is quite phenomenal. The stage at the Crawdaddy is the size of 2 kitchen tables, the space in front where we stand no bigger than my tiny flat. Just the get a 3 piece horn section, bass, guitar, 3 percussionists, a rapper and dj onto it and moving around it is worthy of some respect. I last saw them on a stage the size of a stage, shall we say, in a field as big as a field. A venue far more appropriate for a band who were built for festival appearances. Yet they manage to run through 15 tunes with all the energy, committment and dangerous choreography as if they were playing to 2000 not 200 (maybe less, in fact). The crowd go ballistic almost immediately - I think the penny drops for most of them during the first song when it veers from hip-hop to salsa to a rock-out and stays hummable throughout. Nobody knows the tunes and nobody cares - it's all catchy and immediate stuff but never throwaway nor trite. True, we can't hear the raps clearly and even the singalong chants are in muffled spanish that nobody seems to catch but it doesn't matter a hoot. They have so much fun that at the end of the gig they all leave the stage and take the brass and percussion into the crowd where they play for another 15 mintues cycling through some heavy batucada-like patterns while sticking in snatches of popular melodies like 'Sesame Street' and that dumb 'Ole' chant you hear at football matches. Everyone is, quite frankly, shocked to shit. A part of me wishes it was as unexpected for us, all surprises and delight at the unfamiliar musical proposition offered to us by these guys. But then I remember back to that july night 3 years ago at WOMAD where they absolutely destroyed us, along with our 2000 or so companions. These young Dublin pups knew nothing when they came here tonight.
And to cap it all, because we obviously look so damn cool, a nice lady standing outside the venue gave us free tickets for Blackalicious at the same place. Tonight!
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