Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra @ 930 Club 4/28/06
Antibalas didn’t suck Friday night, but i left early and angry. I have seen Antibalas a bunch of times, have driven to Baltimore and Charlottesville. I enjoyed the dancy afrobeat rhythms. So it was not so much that what they were playing wasn’t any good, it was that i missed what the old antibalas would have played! Where was the anger? Where was the passion? Antibalas had been Jamified.
I was not the only one to notice this. One of the friends i was with overheard someone saying they needed to pick it up a notch, and i heard a disappointed guy in the john saying they’d been more upbeat when he heard them a year ago. No doubt. They opened with a couple slower numbers, and then went into a track so devoid of energy i couldn’t tell if it was ‘Big Man, Small Man’ or not, it was…
Even the anger had soured. Formerly we could expect a between songs push to take action, to get out and make a change, but this time as one slow song ended, we were asked who had voted for Bush, and when one soul bravely raised her hand, she was told that the sanitarium had let her out. Then they started another slow song. It wasn’t angry, just mean. What would Fela do?
The first time i saw Antibalas at the Black Cat, they handed out a trophy to a little Indian girl who was dancing her ass off in the second row all night long. (I still remember her, i was in love for two hours :) On Friday, no one was dancing their ass off. People were moving and tapping and stepping, but no one was dancing the way it used to be. There were some Jam band types with arms interweaving, but that’s not the show i paid to see. I had thought each successive show was a little less vibrant than the one before, and their last show at the 930 was easily the weakest, with sound that wasn’t quite right, but this one was a crash landing.
What changed? I don’t know. I didn’t recognize the drummer, but i can’t say that he was new either in a band with so many members. An off day? perhaps, but this does seem to have been a trend. A look at their website seems to suggest that the Jamification is intentional, they are on the Jam Cruise 4! Perhaps the world is so bad that you just sit and do drugs? Perhaps the world is so bad that you are too depressed to even do your drugs? You may not be able to change anything, but i’d hope you go down with a fight.
May 26th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
[…] I was a litle late to the show and opening band Nomo had already begun by the time i’d arrived, and i quickly regretted that i hadn’t been on time. There are few things better than a surprisingly good opening band, and this was just one of those pleasant surprises. After shedding a tear for the loss of Antibalas a short time back, i was happy to see an afro soul group who had put the emphasis on the soul. Nomo numbered 7 on this night, with a full horn section, bass, guitar, keys, and up to 5 on percussion depending on the song. It wasn’t as dancy as Antibalas used to be but it had soul for days. They put the intimacy of the Black Cat’s backstage to excellent use on their closer, taking the horns into the crowd, with the rest of the band on percussion, for an acoustic and perhaps even ‘moving’ finale. They were damned good. […]